by Paul Feig
I walked over to Mary’s house, stepping through the break in the bushes that separated our yards. I had jumped through that spot in the bushes every time I came to visit Mary since we were kids, sometimes leaping through it wildly, as if I were Superman breaking through a brick wall. Tonight, however, I did not leap. I stepped through cautiously, afraid of ripping my tuxedo and afraid of disturbing whatever was left of my youth that might be clinging to those bushes.
When I went into Mary’s house, her parents said hello and we chatted a bit, but I couldn’t concentrate. My ears were ringing. All I could see were the pictures around the room of Mary when she was younger. Mary in her Garage Club days. Mary in her Brownies uniform. Mary in her confirmation dress. Mary before she was old enough to care about sex.
She stepped out of her bedroom wearing a lacy white sleeveless dress. She looked pretty. My stomach tied into yet another knot.
“Hi, Paul,” she said shyly. “You look nice.”
I thanked her and told her how pretty she looked, but all I could think of was how much I wanted her to call me Fig Newton at that moment. She would never want Fig Newton to have sex with her. Fig Newton wouldn’t be expected to know how to remove a bra or to have a condom in his wallet. Paul, however, had better be ready to deliver the goods.
That night, as I drove Mary to the prom, I felt like I had a time bomb in the car instead of a girl. I was having a hard time reading her. Ever since I had picked her up at her house, she had been acting differently than she ever had before, smiling at me and not making fun of me. She truly seemed to be in a romantic mood, as she looked sweetly down at the wrist corsage I had given her and as she checked her lipstick in the visor mirror. Was this the way girls acted before they had sex? I wondered. Was this the mating ritual? Was my grandma’s old car going to become our conjugal cell before the night was through?
And was tonight truly going to be the night our childhood innocence was going to end? Not “French-kissing” end but actually “everyone gets laid on prom night” end?
We pulled up in front of the VFW hall where the prom was taking place and saw crowds of my classmates heading inside. I parked the car in the dirt parking lot. We got out and started walking. I wasn’t sure if I should take her hand or not, and she didn’t appear to know if she should offer it up. And so we walked next to each other, trying to engage in awkward conversation that was reminiscent neither of things we would talk about in our preprom date lives nor of subjects full-fledged couples could easily toss around. Instead, we tried to walk on the conversational razor’s edge, which counted observable things near us as its main topic. Phrases like “Huh, never been to this catering hall” and “Oh, that’s a pretty dress she has on” and “Careful you don’t step on that big rock” fell pithily from both our mouths as we headed toward the door. Was this how an evening that ended with backseat sex started, I wondered? Were guys and girls who would be as intimate as two people could possibly be in just a few short hours really be pointing out other people’s outfits to each other and musing over the location of the prom? I’d always imagined that sex occurred only after a night of poetry and cocktails, of smoking jackets and dressing gowns, of candle-lit dinners and long stares into each other’s eyes. I didn’t see how it could come out of an evening in a rented VFW hall with each one of us encased in polyester. But maybe I just wasn’t savvy in the ways of the world.
We entered the outer lobby. There was a line of people that made it impossible to get directly into the dance. I could hear the strains of The Knack’s “My Sharona” echoing around inside the main VFW hall, a place acoustically ill-equipped for any music other than the National Anthem. I could see flashing lights and hear the voices of my fellow students having a good time, clearly fueled, I assumed, by their excitement about the evening of sex that awaited them after they left the dance. Some student government kids checked us in as they sat behind a long folding table, the kind of table that professional wrestlers now throw each other through in WWF bouts. I looked up ahead to see why we were standing in line and saw a flash of light. It turned out that before we could enter the dance, we had to have our prom picture taken. Judging from the heat I felt coming out of the main hall doorway, they must have figured that none of us were going to look any better than we did right then as we entered fresh from our bathroom mirrors and the outside air. Once our blow-dried hair and made-up faces and synthetic formal wear got into that humidity-trapping room, we would all emerge looking more like abstract paintings than people who had spent the better part of the day getting dressed.
As we got closer, Mary and I watched the other couples pose for their pictures. Each couple would be placed in a semi-romantic position by the photographer, who would have them put one arm around the other’s waist, turn toward each other at a forty-five-degree angle, and hold their free hands tenderly together in front of them, creating a romantic keepsake of their evening suitable for framing. Everyone who did it seemed to have been dating for years. They would very confidently hold each other’s hands and melt into one another, smiling comfortably for the photographer. Even the fact that the rest of us in line were watching didn’t seem to phase them. Clearly everyone in the school was experienced in the world of dating, leaving me with the title of Most Backward Kid at Chippewa Valley High.
When the time came for Mary and me to get our picture taken, I immediately felt the strongest urge not to do it. I didn’t feel like I particularly wanted a picture to remember any of this by. And yet to not document it would both insult Mary and possibly turn out to be something I would regret. After all, like it or not, this was my last and only prom. And so Mary and I stepped into the spotlight.
The photographer regaled us with corny photographer jokes, many of which we had already heard him tell every single couple who preceded us. Lines like “Well, well, I knew I’d get to take a picture of Warren Beatty and Farrah Fawcett-Majors one of these days” and “When I tell you, think like a dog and say ‘fleas’” were just a few of the “doozies” he served up in a nonstop monologue that we all laughed at even though none of us found him the least bit amusing. The term captive audience came to mind, but if this guy wanted to spend his life taking pictures of kids at their proms, then we could at least have the courtesy to laugh at his stupid jokes. He told Mary and me to put our arms around each other and hold hands. We did as he asked. I put my arm stiffly around her waist, as if she were a bag of golf clubs I was trying to keep from falling over. I fumbled to take her hand and ended up intertwining our fingers strangely, making our hands look more arthritic than romantic. The photographer looked at me oddly, giving me a raised-eyebrow that said “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know how to hold hands with a girl?” And it was at this moment I realized that I had never actually touched Mary before. I mean, we had played Swinging Statues and touched each other “It” during tag and probably slapped each other “five” on one occasion or another during our childhood, but we had never made any prolonged, definite contact. I could tell by the stiffness of her fingers and by how lightly her arm was around my waist that she was feeling just as strange about this as I was. And then, when the photographer came up and shoved us closer together, so that we were pressed against each other so tightly that we could feel our hip bones touching and the warmth of our legs connecting through our clothes, turning our bodies into one unified energy field, I knew at that moment we were both feeling the exact same thing.
Absolutely nothing.
It was the strangest sensation. I think we both were expecting to discover something resembling chemistry or a spark of future passion or even a twinge of connection between us this evening. But we suddenly both felt like cousins who had been pushed into a crowded subway car and shoved together by the surrounding crush. We forced smiles when the photographer uttered the classic “Let’s see those pearly whites” and fought not to blink against the punch of the flash. As soon as he informed us that we were finished, we quickly moved apart, getting away from the ca
mera and the eyes of our peers. I immediately shoved my hands in my pockets and Mary quickly crossed her arms. We gave each other a supportive smile and headed into the dance.
The evening became one of avoidance. We danced a couple of fast dances together and then spent a lot of time excusing ourselves to go to the bathroom. But when the song “Please Come to Boston” by Dave Loggins came on, a song that Mary used to listen to as she beamed at the pictures of Shaun Cassidy she had emblazoned the wall next to her bed with when we were younger, I knew that I had to ask her to dance. Proms are about slow dances, no matter what anybody tells you. They’re not about sex, they’re not about tuxes and gowns, and they’re not about having your picture taken when you first walk in the door. Proms are for young adults, former kids who suffered and enjoyed and worked and goofed off and made their way through the school system since they were five years old just to have one mature moment in a hot VFW hall that would usher them into the next phase of their lives. And because of this, I knew it was my responsibility to Mary as her prom date to escort her through this life ritual. I took a deep breath and went over to her as she stood with her friends.
“Mary,” I asked, “. . . you wanna dance?”
“Sure,” she said.
We walked out on the floor and positioned ourselves in the midst of our slow-dancing peers. The couples around us were holding each other tight; not a shaft of light or a gust of wind could work its way between their bodies. When Mary and I faced each other, we lightly put our arms around each other and began to sway to the music. However, we left a few inches between us.
As we danced and exchanged a few “fun dance, huh?”s, we both noticed that all of the couples around us were making out heavily. With mouths open wide enough to administer CPR to each other, they were engaged in the desperate French-kissing reserved only for high school proms and end-of-war celebrations. We both tried to look around for a pair of faces that weren’t suctioned together, but there were none to be seen. And so, with nowhere else to look, we looked at each other.
I stared at Mary. There in front of me was the face I had known my entire life. It was the face of my next-door neighbor, my fellow Garage Club member, my longtime playmate, and my best friend. We would not be having sex that night, nor would we ever. That wasn’t who we were to each other and we both knew it. I suddenly felt very close to her.
“I’m really glad you came to the prom with me,” I said.
“Yeah, I’m glad you took me,” she said back.
“Thanks, Mary,” I said, giving her a smile.
“You’re welcome, Fig Newton,” she said, smiling back.
And then we both started to laugh. We laughed not like people who weren’t related and not like people who had grown up next door to each other, but like two people who were what we had truly become—brother and sister.
The rest of the evening, she stayed with her friends and I stayed with mine. I was now completely relaxed and was pleased to find that my good friend Dave wasn’t getting along with his prom date very well. She had gone off to talk and gossip with her friends and so Dave and I ended up filling our time doing what we had done since we had met in sixth grade—reciting lines from Warner Bros. cartoons and trying to make each other laugh. We regaled each other with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck dialogue and seemed to be laughing even harder tonight at things we had already laughed at a million times before.
As the dance neared its end, Mary came over to me and said that she was thinking of heading off with some of her friends. She asked me if I wanted to go with them, strictly because she knew she had to. I didn’t want to go with them any more than she wanted me to, and so I said not to worry. I’d tell her mom she was with her girlfriends from school and that everything was fine. We waved good-bye to each other, and then Dave and I decided to head over to the local go-cart track. We stayed there until one-thirty in the morning, driving laps around a dirt track in fast, noisy little cars we could barely fit in, wearing helmets and our rented tuxedos, kicking up clouds of dust and both amazed that we were doing something neither of us had thought could be possible. . . .
We were actually having fun on prom night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At the movies, only a true geek stays through all the end credits. That is, unless he drank too much pop during the film and has to sprint to the can the minute the words “The End” hit the screen (not that anybody puts the words “The End” at the end of movies anymore—to be honest, I kinda miss them). I’ve always stayed through the end credits not only because of my geek status, but because I’m always curious to see who helped make the movie I liked (or didn’t like). And so, unless you’ve downed too many bottles of Fanta in your reading chair or there’s a weird guy staring at you from the seat opposite you right now, then I ask that you sit through the names of the following people I’d like to thank for helping to make this neurotic little book possible.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank the great Pete Fornatale, my editor, for wanting me to do this book in the first place. I’d also like to extend honorary membership in the Garage Club to Dorianne Steele, Philip Patrick, Annik La Farge and Trisha Howell in thanks for all their help. Lindsay Mergens, Anne Watters, and Jill Flaxman can drink out of my bottle of Squirt any day. And much appreciation to Joni Evans, Andy McNichol, Fred Toczek, Rob Carlson, Gary Loder, and Renee Kurtz for keeping all the bullies from beating me up.
Finally, thanks to Mom for thinking I could do no wrong, to Dad for supportively reminding me that I could, and to Laurie for being more like Mom than Dad.
Oh yeah . . . and to you, for buying this book.
THE END
(See how nice that looks?)
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Folkways Music Publishers, Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from the song lyric “Black Betty” new words and new music adaptation by Huddie Ledbetter. TRO-Copyright © 1963 (Renewed) and 1977 by Folkways Music Publishers, Inc., New York, NY. Reprinted by permission of Folkways Music Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2002 by Paul Feig
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.
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THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Feig, Paul.
Kick me: adventures in adolescence / Paul Feig.
1. Teenage boys. 2. Feig, Paul. I. Title.
HQ797 .F38 2002
305.235—dc21 2002018121
eISBN: 978-1-4000-4926-4
v3.0