Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (25 page)

Scurrying from Danielle's semi-permanent camp in the ladies' room to Ryan's table, which is mostly populated by
guys whose dates are elsewhere, Nicole, teenage diplomat, negotiates. Within an hour she has brokered the deal. When she comes to tell me the verdict, how true love has once again gained ascendance, she looks at me with genuine pity. She doesn't actually tell me that I'm dumped; we have to speak in code. Danielle has a headache and needs to leave. Of course I understand. I volunteer to drive her home, seeing that I was her nominal date, but Nicole dismisses that option quickly. I decide not to argue. I wonder what they did with Ryan's date.

“Do you want to just go home?” David asks.

“No, I'll just sit here. It can't get worse.”

M.C. looks like she's about to cry, purely from sympathy. David, sensing that maybe I need a moment, escorts her to the dance floor and dutifully slow-dances with her. I watch them, wondering why I haven't burst out in tears yet.

I then do what all sensible people do when they are dumped at their prom. I go to the bathroom and pee on my own pants, just to prove that it can, in fact, get worse.

Act 2: It gets worse

David eventually comes to find me.

“Are you okay?”

No. I'm clearly not okay. I've been dumped, I peed on myself, and my pants leg, which is finally drying, is developing a very noticeable yellow stain.

“Mitchell, are you having diarrhea or something?”

“No, I'm fine,” I tell him. It is not a convincing statement. We stand there for a while on either side of the stall door.

“Come on, Mitchell. You have to come out of there.”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I've, um, spilled something on my pants.”

Mercifully, David doesn't ask me what I spilled. He gets a paper towel, runs it under the water for a second, and lobs it over the door to me. I do my best to rub the yellowing stain, but now it just looks wet again.

I come out of the stall. David looks at me for a full ten seconds before he has any visible reaction. “Christ. Maybe I should drive home and get you new pants.”

I go back into the stall.

Two guys come in, use the urinals, and leave without washing their hands. Usually it is the kind of thing that David would comment on.

“Look,” David starts, “we'll just walk straight out to the car. No one will notice.”

“Has Danielle left?”

“Who the hell cares?”

“I do.”

“You shouldn't. She was using you to get back at Ryan. Everybody knew it.”

“I didn't.”

“You should have.”

“I liked her.” I nearly choke on the past tense.

“She's shallow, manipulative, and self-centered. You liked her because she's popular and because she let you touch her tits.”

I've never seen David this angry. Actually, I'm not really seeing him at all because we're on opposite sides of the stall door, but this is a new tone of voice for him. All I can manage is another squeaky, “I liked her.”

“Whatever. Let's just go home.”

“I can't.”

“Jesus, Mitchell. Look, it's embarrassing, it's mean, she's a bitch, get over it. It isn't like you were married or anything.”

“What's with you? I just broke up with someone I really liked.”

“Well, technically, she broke up with you.”

“Thanks. Like I wasn't clear. You just don't get it because you haven't been there. You don't know what it's like to get your heart stomped on.”

David is silent, and I wish I could see his face. When he finally speaks, he's back to monotone, as if he has stripped all emotion from the words. “First of all, ‘stomping on hearts' is about the lamest cliché I've ever heard. Second of all, I know a lot about having my heart stomped on and you, of all people, know that. Third of all, you fucking pissed on your pants.” With that, he walks out of the bathroom.

I sit in the stall. This time I cry.

Act 3: Why Louis is a prick

It's hard to give yourself much credit for simply opening a door, but deciding to leave the bathroom may be the single bravest thing I will ever do in my life. When the tears finally stop, I sit for a moment and try to collect myself. I practice my breathing while I wait through a few more urinations and one person vomiting into the sink. When everyone is gone, I finally slink out of the stall and make one more attempt to wash off my pants. They don't smell too bad and they aren't soaking, but there's still a large discoloration stretching from my crotch to my ankle. I try standing under the hand dryer, but it's too far up the wall to do much good. It still looks like I peed on my pants. But it doesn't matter. I have to find David. I'm not sure what I'll say to him when I find him, but I have to find him. I have to find David. I use this as a mantra, to keep me focused. I have to find David. I have to find David.

“Take a deep breath and open the door,” I tell myself. I repeat these instructions in a whisper three times. Finally, I take one deep breath and open the door.

Louis is, of course, standing on the other side of the door.

His eyes are drawn immediately to the wet spot on my pants leg. Immediately. No passing go, no 200 bucks. “You pissed on yourself.”

“I was washing my hands … I spilled my drink and …”

“Bullshit, you pissed on yourself.” It is as definitive an accusation as you can get. I wither.

“Could you be a bigger loser?” The answer appears to be no. Louis shakes his head and I stare at the floor in an effort to keep myself from breaking into tears again.

“Stay here,” he commands. “No, actually, go sit in the stall for a minute, I'll be right back.”

I know that Louis is the person I trust least in the whole world. I know that he has never done or said anything to me that anyone would consider nice. Nevertheless, I go sit in the stall and wait for him.

He returns carrying a large plastic cup.

“Get your butt out here,” he growls and I obey. “We have to get you out of here. Here's how we're going to do it. This is seltzer; it won't stain.” He pauses as Michael Joseph walks into the bathroom. “Yo, Joseph Michael, don't piss yourself,” Louis calls out. Michael responds with his middle finger.

Louis continues in a whisper. “As we walk out, call me a faggot. Don't worry about what happens next. In three minutes, we'll be out on the sidewalk, no one will know. Ready?”

Well, no. I don't want to call Louis a faggot. It's not a word I can use anymore.

“Louis.” That's my voice. I wasn't expecting it.

“Don't thank me. I can't stand that mushy stuff.”

“I don't want to call you a faggot.”

He looks at me as if he is about to say something, but he doesn't. He scratches the thin goatee that adorns his chubby chin. “ ‘Asshole' will do.”

“How about ‘prick'?”

“Even better.” An actual non-malicious smile.

We walk out the door. “You prick,” I say as loudly as I can. It isn't really loud, but it's audible.

Louis turns, throws the water at me, places his face less than three inches from mine and growls, “Did you call me a prick?”

The water hits me square in the chest, but no one had been watching closely enough to notice that I had come out of the bathroom with a wet leg. I have cover.

Louis repeats his growl louder. “Did you call me a prick?”

I don't have to respond. Suddenly five or six guys are dragging Louis away. Several of them try to hold me back as well, but since I haven't made any motion toward Louis, they don't have much to do.

It takes Mr. Sorrelson, the designated prom heavy, a few minutes to realize that something is going on and make his way over to us.

“Mr. Wells, what happened?” he barks.

Nothing comes to me, so I say, “Nothing.”

“You're wet.”

“Someone spilled a drink on me.” I'm beginning to shake. I'm hoping that it isn't visible. Louis has disappeared.

“We don't tolerate fighting.”

“I wasn't fighting.”

The small crowd that had gathered a moment ago has conveniently dispersed. No available witnesses. I'm the
only one who seems to have been caught. Sorrelson looks around. He sniffs as if it might trigger some deeply buried bloodhound instinct. He seems to be at a loss for what to do. He didn't see Louis, so he doesn't have a conflict to settle here. All he has is me, standing there shaking, dripping seltzer from my white tuxedo.

“Maybe you should call it a night, Mr. Wells. I may need to speak to you again on Monday, so don't think this little incident is over.”

Even I can tell this little incident is over. At this point, it hardly matters—how much more trouble can I be in? This would just be a small footnote to my file. I follow Sorrelson to the door, looking as if I'm upset to leave.

He stops suddenly. “Where's your date?”

I shrug. He raises one eyebrow, but doesn't respond.

“Let me tell my ride I'm leaving.” He watches me closely from his post near the door, in case I make a break for the dance floor or something. I find M.C. at our table, but no David.

“He took off. A few minutes ago.” She looks more bewildered than upset.

“He just left us here?”

“Maybe it was something I said.”

I swallow hard. “It wasn't something you said. Look, I'm being kicked out. Don't laugh. It's a long story. Is there someone who can give you a ride home? I need to find David.”

“I'll come with you.” M.C. reaches up and takes my hand. Her fingers slide in between mine easily, comfortably, as if they did this all the time.

“I'll have Sorrelson call us a cab,” I tell her, and we both smile. Not quite a laugh, but a real, unforced smile. The first one I remember all day.

Guys

Maybe David and I are guys after all. We self-parked. It wasn't humiliating enough for us to arrive in a Honda; we had to skip the valet too. Climbing out of the Civic in prom gowns would have been less than glamorous, but at least we could have walked into the elegant lobby, down the plush maroon carpet, and made a proper entrance. Instead, David pulled into the parking deck and our dates had to walk, in high heels, up two flights of dingy, poorly lit stairs that smelled like someone had been sick in them recently, before finally arriving through a side door next to the bathrooms.

“He had to have taken the car.” M.C. looks cold in the air-conditioned lobby, so I slip off my jacket and place it around her shoulders. Maybe I should have asked first. She seems surprised by my chivalry, but not upset, and she slides her arms into the sleeves. The jacket may fit her better than me. She definitely looks cuter in it.

“Maybe he's sitting in the car waiting for us.”

We agree that I at least have to check. I leave M.C. standing in the lobby, in case he comes back. The stairs seem even darker now and the smell is more complex—still vomit, but now with undertones of pot.

The car isn't there.

I stand in the space where it should have been. I recheck the signs to make sure I'm on the right level. I'm in the right place. The car is just gone. I didn't expect it to be here, but somehow I'm more disturbed by the reality of the empty parking space than I was by the thought of it. David took the car and left me here. He must have been really pissed off. I know what David eats for lunch, I know what he means when he shrugs, I know his batting average, and which episode of
Pib and Pog
is his favorite, but I have no idea what he's thinking right now. I'm not sure I know anything about my best friend.

Sex

I hear the beep of a car alarm being deactivated, followed by the click of a door being unlocked. Door slams, engine revs. Normal on the surface feels portentous here in the depths of the parking deck.

With a squeal of tires, a familiar Porsche pulls up next to me.

“Lost something?” Best friend, girlfriend, car. I nod. Nicole's hair has lost some of the composure it had earlier
in the evening, as if someone has been pawing it. There's some story here—some sequence of events that led her to get her own car from the garage and leave by herself—but not one that I can guess from looking at her face. She seems only half-interested in whether I answer her question. She knows at least part of why I'm standing here by myself.

“Carson's. After-party. Ditch this lame-ass event. Hop in.” Nicole's not one for full sentences.

For a moment I imagine myself a different Mitchell, one who would “hop in” to Nicole's Porsche on my way to an after-party that the real Mitchell never would be invited to, watching her long tan legs work the gears. She looks like money, even without the Porsche as backdrop. Her skin is smooth and unblemished, her clothes are expensive and fit her perfectly, but worn with the casualness of not having to worry about such things. My fantasy has worked itself all the way up to the after question about whether this was just mercy sex when she interrupts.

“Mitch?”

I'd like to be a different Mitchell, but I'm not Mitch. I say, “Thanks, but …” and can't seem to finish the sentence. She doesn't seem fazed.

“Catch you later,” she says, but she doesn't mean it. I don't expect her to ever speak to me again. She was just offering a ride to a schlep her friend dumped.

“Gotta go. Party goin' on.” She pulls away. I head back up the stairs.

No

When I reenter the lobby, M.C. isn't alone, but David isn't back. The blond male standing beside her is Louis. I almost don't recognize him because he is standing still, not gesturing, not talking.

“You're still here,” he states quietly, like he didn't think I should be.