Hairstyles of the Damned (33 page)

“So what’s the fucking deal with that?” Kim asked.

“I dunno. I guess the black kids, the seniors, are pissed, so they’re having their own prom,” I said.

“That’s fucking stupid,” Kim said.

“Yeah it is, but not for the reason you think it is,” I said.

Kim took off her sunglasses and turned around, staring at me. “And what would that be?”

“I think it’s fucking bullshit that just because you’re white, you get everything you fucking want,” I said. “That, I think, is fucking stupid.”

“What?” Kim asked, staring at me like my head was on fucking fire.

“I think it’s fucking shit,” I said. “They just wanted to be, like, fucking accepted or whatever. It was like their song. Fuck, think about how important your fucking music is to you, you know? Fuck. They just wanted to feel like they were part of it, you know?”

“They seem like a bunch of babies,” Gretchen said. “They didn’t get their way, so now they’re ruining it for everybody.”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “You don’t get it. You feel like you don’t belong and you get fucking sick of it, so you do your own fucking thing.”

We pulled into the mall parking lot a little later, right by the big blue canopy for the food court, and Kim started getting out. “I got to go, chumps. Until we meet again, lover,” Kim said, winking at me.

“Get fucked,” I said, turning away. I climbed into the front seat and slid the seat belt into place. “She always acts like such a fucking jerk.”

“You fucking love it,” Gretchen said.

“I dunno. I used to, maybe. Maybe I wish she didn’t have to act so rude all the fucking time.”

“Rude? She doesn’t act rude.”

“Sure she does,” I said. “She thinks it makes her adorable. She’s been doing it since junior high. She thinks no boys will like her if she is nice. She’s got to put on this act all the time: punk rock Kim. Yeah. She’s not ever like a real person anymore hardly.”

“Well, you’re in a fucking mood, aren’t you?” Gretchen asked.

“I guess,” I said. “I just kind of realized this shit, you know?”

“Like what?” she asked.

“I think a lot of these punk kids we know are fucking poseurs,” I said. “I think most of them, they just do whatever, you know, to fit in. It’s like a totally mindless act. Like Kim—it’s all about fucking fashion.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Gretchen asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

“I’m talking about how you two guys are like the most closeminded people I know,” I said. “You don’t even know what punk is about, you know? You just dress like it, because you were like a loser and it, like, gave you someone to be after junior high, something to belong to, you know?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You and all those other kids we knew from junior high. I mean, fuck—do you think I forgot Dave Lattel had a
Grease
lunchbox?”

“What?”

“The movie
Grease
with John Travolta? He had a
Grease
lunchbox all through grade school because he said he liked John Travolta’s hair. And he was way into GI Joe and Transformers. He used to tell people to call him “Dave-o-Tron” and he’d make that Transformer sound and pretend he had become a jet and fly around. And that was like in seventh grade. And now, now, now he’s punk? It’s like you and Kim. Kim used to be a cheerleader for god sakes. She used to date Barry Nolan who was on the basketball team. And suddenly all you guys were all hard-core.”

“Whatever, dweeb.”

“You’re just like the jocks. Just because you have blue hair doesn’t make you fucking better than everyone else.”

“What?”

“Just because you have blue hair and fucked-up clothes doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone else. Because you know what? You’re just conforming to someone else’s code. Even though you don’t wear khakis or sweaters or whatever, but to me all you guys look the same. You think you’re so individualistic, but you’re not. You guys—you and Kim and all the rest—you’re like anti-snob snobs. But you’re just as mean as the preppy kids. You’re all just as fucking lame.”

“Oh really?”

“No, I dunno. I didn’t mean to call you a poseur. I just … I just wish you guys knew that people like you for who you are. You could, like, be yourself. But someone, well a guy, some dick like Tony Degan, well, he doesn’t even care about who you really are. I know, I’m a guy.”

“You are? I thought you were a hermaphrodite.”

“I’m a guy and I know what guys think. All they care about is having sex with you.”

“So all you care about is having sex with me?” she asked, and my face got very red very instantly.

“No, no, I just meant you’re my friend and I really care about you.”

“Oh, shut up before you make me puke.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But, well … well, kids grow up so fast today,” I said, smiling.

“Get out! Get out of my car!” Gretchen shouted, pulling up in front of my house. I turned and watched her pull away, thinking,
I said too much, I open my fucking mouth too much
, and that I’d be lucky if I ever saw her again because it felt like something had just ended for me.

nineteen

So I wish I could say I didn’t go to junior prom at all. I wish I could say I was like, “Fuck you, you racist American institution.” Heck, I wish I could say I took Gretchen, even. But I didn’t. Because I was a dumb teenager and all I wanted was to feel like I fit in, or at least look like I fit in—which when I look back now is the stupidest thing and the most basic thing anybody ever needs, maybe. So I let my hair grow out for the next two weeks—for the stupid fucking pictures, you know—and I asked this girl, Kelly Connors, who Mike Madden helped set me up with, who was the little sister of one of Erin McDougal’s friends, you know. Well, this girl Kelly Connors was very short with curly orange hair and she had asthma and was like allergic to everything, like even grass, and when I went to pin the white corsage on her pink dress she said, “I’m sorry. Roses give me a rash,” and me and two other marching band dudes I hardly knew rented a limo, and me and Kelly danced to all the stupid dances and all I remember was the last one, which was, of course, “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, because, like usual, I had this massive erection, and poor Kelly Connors kind of noticed it and I just shrugged and kept on dancing. Mike Madden was there with Erin McDougal and we talked for a while and I told him about my dad splitting, and then Mike and Erin got in a fight and ended up leaving, and like that, in a matter of the briefest of awkward moments, the junior prom was pretty much over for me.

twenty

After prom in the limousine, the limousine we had rented, me and the two other loners I knew from band class, well, I did something very bad. I fingered Kelly Connors right in front of everybody, just switching off the interior light and pinning her to the backseat and I thought I might have had sex with her that night, but I wasn’t sure; all the while the other kids and their dates kind of whispered and one girl said, “This is disgusting. I want to go home,” and I didn’t even care, because I felt like I had something to prove, because I did. I had to prove what a desperate asshole I was, really. I wanted to show everyone how cool I was, I guess, and what better way than mauling your date in front of a bunch of strangers? Perfect.

After Kelly had been dropped off in front of her house, with her pink dress halfway up her thighs and her makeup all over her face and a rash spreading all over her chest, and the other two band dorks had taken their dates home and said goodnight, I was riding alone in the back of the limousine, feeling alone and lonely, and laughing to myself about the terrible night I’d had, thinking about the stupidity of it, of trying so hard to impress somebody, anybody, of just trying so hard to seem like I fit in, and I thought about that girl Kelly’s rash even and was feeling lousy about that too now. Then I thought,
You know who would get a kick out of all this? Gretchen
.

The limousine driver, who was black—because it was just like the Dead Kennedys said,
there really was an international conspiracy, and you never saw white people doing shit jobs anymore
—turned to me, his face long and shiny, him taking off his chauffeur cap as he said, “Did you have a nice night, kid?”

“No, it was kind of shitty,” I said.

“Yeah, I went to my prom and it was shitty too,” he said.

“Yeah. How come?” I asked.

“I didn’t understand it then, but I wish I had spent more time hanging with my boys, you know? Instead, I was all up on some girl I never even talked to again.”

“Yeah, I hear that,” I said, and then I asked, “How much longer do I got left, before you got to drop me off.”

“You guys rented it until seven a.m. It’s only six now.”

“Can you go by and pick up a buddy of mine?” I asked.

“Sure, pal, whatever you want. Where to?”

I thought if Gretchen was home and if she’d listen, I’d tell her I was sorry and ask her to please, please, please come out with me.

And so that’s what happened. We drove around together in the back of the rented limo for an hour and maybe it was because I was tired and it was so late—or so early—but Gretchen was in her pajamas and leaning back in the big leather seats and we were cruising along Lake Shore Drive and eating breakfast from McDonald’s and it was like nothing bad in the world had ever happened to me.

We went to Laura’s Halloween party because we figured we were seniors now and it would be the last Halloween we’d all be together for. Gretchen went as a kind of zombie cheerleader and she looked very hot to me, all done-up in this red and white uniform, her hair in pigtails, but with black circles around her eyes, and I went as a mummy, which was kind of half-assed because all I did was at the last minute wrap myself up in toilet paper. I kind of wrapped my face up a little, but I couldn’t see really, and by then I had grown my hair out and was not combing it and it was kind of this poofy, random mess, and I couldn’t get the toilet paper to stay tight against it because it kept breaking, so I just did my body, arms, legs, neck, and forehead, mostly.

OK, so the party was in Laura’s basement, Laura, the redhead who had sometimes fooled around with Bobby B. when Kim and Bobby B. had been dating, but all that was over now, and apparently Kim and Laura were now like best friends. Laura was having this party, and she had bought her mom and dad this gift certificate for Sybaris, this couples spa motel with, like, hot tubs in the room, to keep them away for the night, and, well, she had gone all out and had decorated her entire basement which like everyone else’s in the neighborhood was one long rectangle but with fake brown paneling, and she put up orange and black streamers and crepe paper and cut-outs of cats and ghosts and monsters and there were like five carved jack-o’-lanterns, all lit up and everything, and all kinds of spooky food, like a green brain-shaped Jell-O mold and orange and black M&M cupcakes on a table in the corner, and Laura’s dad was a cop and didn’t ever mind kids drinking in the basement as long as they were staying put for the evening, so there were cases and cases of PBR and Old Milwaukee stacked by the back basement door, which were going quickly. Also, Laura had, like, some crap goth music playing, either Bauhaus or Siouxsie and the Banshees, but it was OK because the spooky mumbling and whininess fit, I guess.

There were like thirty or so kids there, mostly seniors, because, well, believe it or not, we really were seniors now. Most of the kids who had come were wearing pretty generic costumes: a ghost, which was just a kid in a white sheet with holes for eyes; a hobo, which was some other dude who wore crummy clothes and blacked out a tooth; and a coach, which was some guy in a football jersey with a whistle around his neck. Then there were kids who were wearing big rubber plastic masks of President Bush and Darth Vader and Frankenstein, and there were like one or two girls who didn’t really have costumes on but had like glitter in their hair and on their faces, then there were like five kids who didn’t have any costumes at all and said they had come as “seniors,” which was kind of dumb after the third or fourth kid said it, and then, of course, there was Tony Degan, in his white “I’m with Stupid” T-shirt with the arrow pointing to some random kid beside him, and I guess, as his costume, Tony was wearing a black patch over one of his eyes. When Gretchen and I walked downstairs, Tony had his arm around this small stoner chick with buck teeth, Jill, a sophomore dressed like a witch, and I watched Gretchen head over to him and, like usual, start yelling and I smiled and went over and grabbed a beer and checked out the rest of the party. There were all kinds of kids, kids I didn’t know or didn’t recognize in vampire makeup or fake mustaches and the like, and, well, like a few kids who had gone all out with their costumes, who must have been planning their costumes for months, seriously. Like of course, there was Laura, whose party it was, who was this really tall, freckled, lovely redhead, dressed as an entire kissing booth. Like I said, she was kind of known for being easy, fooling around with anybody, especially Bobby B., and she was always breaking up with some guy we knew and then going off with someone else the same night, and she had this big brown cardboard box and she was standing inside it and there was a sign along the top that said, “Kisses $1.00,” and guys were going up, handing her money, and she was laughing and making out with them. Then there was like this other guy at the party we knew, Bill, a chubby stoner, who would try to sell you fake acid—little pieces of paper which were just that, only paper—and he was dressed up as Batman, but in a costume he had made himself out of, like, sweatpants and a baby blue blanket, so he was like Fat Batman, and he was like dancing but he really couldn’t dance, and he was a big kid, I mean, fat, because his costume didn’t fit and you could see his big belly hanging over his black sweatpants.

OK, then there was this kind of tall girl dressed as the Tooth Fairy and at first I thought it was this girl Lucy, but Lucy had cut her hair real short and this girl had long flowing brown hair with a lovely gold tiara atop it and this small black mask concealing her identity and all. She had this ornate gold dress on and a gold wand and a necklace full of small white teeth and a golden satchel full of money. She was very gently touching her wand to all the kids present and, goofing around, everyone was acting like they immediately fell asleep.