The Senior Prom
WHILE half the school was abuzz about the prom, the subject held no interest whatsoever for me. Why should I care about the stupid prom? I wasn’t going to ask some girl to go to the dance. I couldn’t go with the one person I wanted to go with. It was all irrelevant to me. Without discussing it, I half assumed that Bill would be going with one of the many women who seemed to be perpetually in pursuit of him. Best not to think about that until I had no alternative but to do so.
I was therefore surprised when, a couple of weeks before the day of the prom, Bill casually asked me, “So what time do you want to go to the prom?”
“Huh?” I said—either that or something equally brilliant.
“The prom. You know, the dance thing that everyone’s been talking about for weeks?”
“I’m not going,” I said.
“Why not? It’s the senior prom,” he said, as if that should explain everything.
“I’m not going to ask some girl to go to the dance just to be a cover for me. I don’t work that way. And besides, half the school thinks I’m gay already.”
“I don’t want you to go to the prom with some girl.”
“That’s the way the game is played. Sorry to tell you that, but you kind of have to invite a girl if you want to go to the prom.”
“Why?” he said.
“Huh?” Our conversation had degenerated into one-word questions and answers.
“I don’t buy your premise,” he said. “Which is why I’m asking you if you will be my date at the senior prom.”
“Bill! No! You’d never recover from something like that! Your reputation would be ruined.”
“Mark, I’ve given this a lot of thought, and this is the way I see it. One, I’m going to graduate soon and leave this town, maybe never to return again. Two, any capital I’ve earned in high school has a very short shelf life and needs to be spent before it expires. And three, I don’t give a flying fuck what these people think. I don’t live my life for their approval. If they don’t like something they see, then they can just look somewhere else.”
“Bill!”
“So?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“So? Will you be my date for the prom?”
“Bill!”
“It’s a simple question. Do you know how many women would give their left boob to get what you just got? An invitation from the great and mighty—”
And I smacked him at that point.
“Ow!” he complained. “That’s not one of the options! It’s either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But you should know that there is only one of those options that I’m willing to take from you.” And I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was speaking the truth. The man could be stubborn beyond belief when he set his mind to something. It’s just a good thing I wasn’t the same way!
The man simply sat and stared at me.
“Can I have a little while to think about it?” I asked, growing uncomfortable with him staring at me.
“No. There’s only one answer I’ll take from you on this question.”
“Then why’d you even bother asking me?” I complained.
“I wanted to do this right and invite you to attend the prom as my date. You don’t just tell someone that they’re going with you.”
“You just did!”
“That’s because you are. Now what’s your answer?”
“Aggghhhh!” I yelled.
“So, is that a ‘yes’?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then I guess it’s a yes, then!” I said in exasperation.
“Good. Now that we’re past that little issue, we need to start planning. We’re gonna need tuxes. I thought we could rent a limo as well to take us and maybe some friends.”
“What makes you think that anyone is going to want to be seen in public associating with us ever again if we show up there as dates?”
“Because I happen to know that we will not be the only same sex couple attending the prom this year.”
Now he had my interest. “Oh?”
“Well, it seems that someone I know got Jeremy to come out to himself earlier in the year. And since then the guy’s done a lot of growing and mellowing. And I also know that he’s been dating a guy from the city that he met at a bar.”
“How’d he get into a bar?” I asked.
“The same way half the people in them get in—by having a fake ID. And it’s not like you think. He doesn’t have some old guy. He’s been dating a guy who is just finishing his first year at college in the city. So they’re only one year apart in age. And Jeremy turns eighteen one week before the prom, so that argument is out the door too. He wants to do it, but he doesn’t want them to be the only two guys dancing together.”
“We’d have to dance?” I complained.
“Well, it is a dance that you’ve agreed to go to. So yes, you’d need to dance.”
“But I don’t know how to dance!”
“Neither do I. Neither do 99 percent of the people who are going to be attending the prom. They’re all gonna do the same thing—ask their moms to teach them something simple or drape their arms around their date’s shoulders and move very slowly, hoping to God that no one looks too closely at what they’re doing.”
While I was still digesting the last little bit of information, Bill was already on to another subject. “Now, I was thinking that we should go to the tux shop in the mall tomorrow after school and get measured so that our tuxes will be ready when we need them. So don’t plan anything for tomorrow afternoon right after school.”
The following two weeks passed in a bit of a blur. Everyone at school was becoming very wrapped up in the prom preparations. I lost track of the number of times people asked me if I was going. Everyone almost seemed to assume that I wasn’t. When I told people that I was going, they asked me who my date was. I wasn’t prepared for that question, so I simply told the first person that it was no one they knew, and then I just kept repeating that answer for the next two weeks. I had been tempted to say that it was a surprise, but I’m glad I didn’t. The “no one you know” answer came out of nowhere but seemed to work pretty well.
I kept thinking that the whole thing was still off in the distance and that I could worry about it tomorrow—I know, Scarlett O’Hara would have been so proud of me. But suddenly tomorrow was today, and it was real. The day we picked up the tuxes was the day it all started to wash over me like waves at a beach. Holy crap! This was real. I was about to go to my senior prom as Bill’s date, and he as my date! We were about to open ourselves to a whole fresh boatload of crap, potentially more serious than anything we’d ever even thought of previously.
Oh, I really hoped that we were not making some serious mistake with this. The thought of running away was momentarily considered and then rejected, but I supposed I could run away and stay away for only twenty-four hours and then suddenly reappear. No, that wouldn’t work—Bill would just be pissed with me, and that wouldn’t be good.
That night I didn’t sleep very well. Bill, damn him, seemed to sleep like a baby. While I was really worked up and anxious beyond belief, Bill seemed to be increasingly calm and relaxed. While he seemed to treat the whole thing as a burden that was being lifted from his shoulders, I felt like the burden on mine was increasing proportionally. I was tempted to wake him and demand that he take some of the crap back so that I could get some sleep, but I didn’t. I simply lay in bed beside him and tried to let some of his calm seep over onto me. If only it worked that way.
The next day was our day to work at the farm supply store. We went to work and put in a half day. A few weeks ago, Bill had asked if we could have a half day off to get ready for the prom. The manager had given us the time with no argument, seeming to recall his own prom wistfully.
At four o’clock we started to get dressed in our tuxedos. I had never worn one of the things before, and to the best of my knowledge neither had Bill. With consultation from my mom about what one did with some parts of the wardrobe, we succeeded in getting dressed. And I have to say that we looked pretty goddamned good! It was remarkable how beautiful the suits fit us and how well we wore them, if I may say so myself. (And since I’m telling this story, I can.)
When my Mom saw us all duded up, she started taking pictures, telling us that we looked so handsome. Maybe I could do this. Just maybe we could pull this off. She produced two beautiful, perfect white roses, which she had ordered from the local flower shop. They were carefully prepared to slip into the pockets on our jackets, providing a beautiful accent to the black of the tuxes.
Our limo arrived. More photos. Enough already. We finally got in and directed the driver to pick up Jeremy at his house, which was only a few miles away, so we picked him up first. He was done up in a tux as well, and while he looked good, I thought ours looked better. It didn’t matter that it was the same tux from the same shop as ours. Maybe it was the fact that there were two of us and we hadn’t picked up Jeremy’s date yet.
Jeremy’s date lived in the city, which was fortunate, because our prom was being held in the city. “The City” was only twenty miles away, but in many ways it was another world for people in our valley. Jeremy’s date was a college student so he lived on campus at the local state university. Our next stop was the campus, where Jeremy got out to greet his date. I must admit that I was quite curious to see what kind of man Jeremy was dating.
The man was hot! And it wasn’t just the tux he had on. The man looked like a jock, just like Jeremy, and Bill for that matter. It looked like, in our little foursome, I was the only nonjock in the crowd. No problem. I could handle that.
Introductions were made all around. And then it suddenly became real for me. No, this wasn’t just a fairytale, even though there were four fairies. This was real. What made it real? Jeremy kissed his date, right there on the sidewalk. Holy shit! This was real. We were really gonna do this. Oh crap! This wasn’t just a dream. We were really about to walk into our prom as two same-sex couples.
All four of us got into the car, and entirely too quickly we were there. There were lots of cars, including several limos, pulling in all at the same time. While we waited for the cars ahead of us to disgorge their passengers, Bill gave us a pep talk. Like a huddle among football players before the big play—or so I guessed, since I’d never been in such a thing—Bill said, “Okay, guys. This is it. We’re gonna do this thing. We’re gonna go out there and make history. We’re gonna give them all something to talk about for years to come. And damn, but we’re gonna look hot while doing it too! Let’s do this thing!”
When we got to the door of the hotel that was the site of the prom, our driver opened the door, and one by one we stepped out of the car. We all stood somewhat stiffly, each making sure not to touch one another. We all took a big breath and then stepped forward and through the door. Inside the lobby, of course, we immediately began to see people we knew. Several of Bill and Jeremy’s jock buddies greeted them.
“Where are your dates?” someone asked.
“They’re already here,” Bill said, which earned him some stares of confusion.
Going with the crowd of well-dressed teenagers, we made our way to the entrance to the ballroom. A photographer was set up near the door to take photos of the couples as they arrived. As we waited in line, several other people asked why we were in line without our dates. Bill and Jeremy just looked at each other and smiled.
Entirely too quickly, it was our turn. Jeremy and his date went first. Jeremy stood in front, with his date standing behind him with his arms around Jeremy’s torso (his date was bigger than Jeremy). The photographer said nothing—if he was any good, he had seen it all before and was only interested in getting a good shot.
The crowd that waited in line was carefully watching everything. When Jeremy had stepped forward with another man, and then posed with that man—with that man touching him!—they became absolutely silent. When they stepped away, the crowd started to murmur, to whisper to one another.
We stepped forward to take the last couple’s place. Since Bill and I were about the same height, the photographer had us pose differently. He tried to pose us standing apart, but Bill insisted that we needed to be touching, so we ended up standing side by side with our arms around one another. Bill was smiling the biggest smile I had ever seen on his face. He really was taking this as a liberating move. Maybe he was right, and I should get over being so freaked out. This was our senior prom, after all, and I was attending the prom with my dream date. It suddenly occurred to me that I was attending the prom on my own terms, not someone else’s, and that I really did have a lot to be excited about. So Bill’s positive attitude spread, and encompassed me as well. I smiled. My arm was around my man in front of our peers. We were finally doing what I had wanted to do all along.
The photographer got several shots and then dismissed us so that the next couple could move forward—yes, we were a couple! Taking Bill’s hand in mine, as Jeremy had taken his date’s hand, we walked forward into the ballroom and into a new phase of our lives. Bill and Jeremy had signed us up for a table for the evening. The room was filled with round tables, each set for eight people. I didn’t know who our other tablemates were going to be, but I was sure we would find out shortly.
Since we were the first of our table to arrive, we had our choice of seats. Given the constant stream of people coming in, it didn’t take long for the room to fill up, including the other seats at our table. The other four seats were taken by two more of Bill and Jeremy’s jock buddies and their dates, in their cases opposite-sex couples. Needless to say, the four others at our table were somewhat at a loss for what to say about the situation. Bill and Jeremy talked with them as they would in any other conversation, which seemed to work—at least for a time.
One of the straight jocks interrupted Bill at one point and said, “Dude! What the hell?”
Bill wanted to make the guy work for it, so he said, “What do you mean?”
“Where are your dates?”
Bill took my hand, held it up, and said, “Right here.”
Jeremy and his date did the same.
“Dude! You’re not gay!”
“Yes, I am,” Bill answered.
“Me, too,” Jeremy said.
“Me, too,” Jeremy’s date added, so I was forced to say the same words as well.
“No, you’re not!” one of the jocks protested. “You play sports. Faggots don’t play sports.”
“First, ‘faggot’ is a pejorative term that we find offensive. And I know you don’t want to offend a teammate. We are ‘gay’ or ‘same-sex’. Okay?”
“Okay,” the poor guy said, not entirely sure what was happening.
One of the two females at the table asked, “How long have you been gay?”
“All my life,” Bill answered.
“No way!” one of the jocks objected.
“Yes, way. I’ve known from the very beginning that I was attracted to men.”
“But you never came on to anybody in the locker room!”
“Of course not. None of you are gay. Contrary to one of the myths that circulate, gay men do not attack random straight guys in locker rooms. Gay men are attracted to men, yes. We admire the male physique. We want to have sex with men. But we want to have sex with someone who wants to be with us, someone who is like us, someone who is gay. I’m personally not interested in blowing some straight guy in the locker room. That would be entirely one sided and would make me nothing better than a whore servicing some guy on the sly. I want love, reciprocation, two-way making out.”
“So you’re saying….”
“Yes, Mark and I are in love and are a couple. We have been for a long time, and plan to be for the long haul.”
Jeremy decided to join in the discussion, trying to lighten the moment a little bit. “Personally, I’m just using him for sex,” he said, pointing to his date.
“Dude!” the guy said, punching Jeremy’s arm playfully.
“Hey, it’s really good sex!”
They leaned in for a quick kiss.
The two jocks and one of their dates were all silent. The other woman, however, was less restrained in her comments. “I think it’s beautiful!”
“Thank you,” Bill said.
By this time the room had filled, and the band started to play. We were going to have dinner, but before the dinner service started, Bill suggested we should have one dance. Walking hand in hand, Bill and I and Jeremy and his date made our way to the dance floor and danced a slow dance with our arms wrapped around one another, moving gently with the music. The room was silent except for the music, and given that there were several hundred people now in the room, that was quite a feat. Had some of Bill’s positive outlook not rubbed off on me, I would have been quaking in my shoes.
But not only did I have Bill’s projection of calm confidence to draw upon, I also had him whispering into my ear that he loved me and was so proud to be there in that room with me on his arm for all the world to see. And while we were in public, we were also having a very personal and private moment that only we could share. Damn, but the man was good. Do I know how to pick ’em or what?
We had only been dancing in the silence of the room for about a minute when our quiet moment was interrupted. “Gentlemen!” a voice demanded our attention. “Come with me, please.”
It was the faculty chaperone for the prom event.
“No,” Bill simply replied.
“Excuse me?” he asked, not entirely believing that someone would so blatantly disregard his command.
“I said, ‘no’,” Bill repeated. “We’re dancing. If you have something to say, what’s wrong with right where we are?”
“This conversation would be better held in private.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
The faculty member was close to sputtering by that point. “All right. You want to do this here, then we’ll do this here. I demand that you immediately cease and desist from your reprehensible behavior. Same-sex couples are not permitted at this prom. Period.”
“Oh? Where does it say that? I didn’t see it on the tickets that I purchased. I didn’t see it in the contract I signed when I bought the tickets. I didn’t see it on the sign outside the door when we arrived. In fact, I don’t recall seeing it anywhere, and trust me, I read every word very carefully.”
“I will not allow you to make a mockery of this event.”
“I can assure you, sir, that there is no mocking intended or provided. We are here for the same reason as everyone else. For the same celebration, the same transition, that everyone else is here to celebrate. The fact that we are gay and have same gender partners as our dates is the only difference, and is of no concern to you or anyone else. Now, if you will excuse us, we have a dance.”
The man was outraged at Bill’s disregard for his orders and for Bill’s audacity in arguing with his orders. He reached his hand out and placed it on Bill’s shoulder and pulled him away from me and back toward him.
“I would be very careful if I were you,” Bill warned immediately. “You might want to look around the room and notice that we are being recorded. See that video camera over there,” he said, pointing to one about fifty feet away. “And that one over there.” The person recording on that camera raised his hand and waved. “And that one over there,” he said, pointing to a third camera. “We are 100 percent within our rights, and you need to back off and go away. A fight you pick on this issue here tonight will not go well for you. Do you understand me?” Bill asked in his most earnest, quasi-menacing voice.
“The days of us hiding in the shadows are finished. We will not go quietly into the dark of night to allow you to pretend you live in a happy 1950s sitcom world that simply doesn’t exist. We are real. We are here. We are equal. And we will be treated with respect, or you will buy yourself one hell of a lot of trouble. Now, go away and let us dance.”
Jeremy and his date moved immediately to stand on either side of the man, their arms crossed across their chests, looking as menacing as possible. “And if you are intending to cut in, I’m not interested in dancing with you,” Bill said as a final jab at the man.
With his face as red as fire he pushed his way past Jeremy and exited the dance floor. Bill walked over to the band and asked that, since our dance had been interrupted, they replay their last number. The band agreed with no argument, so we started our dance once again. We got through the dance that time, ending with a kiss.
We exited the dance floor and returned to our table to a scattering of applause from around the room. It was certainly not 100 percent encouragement, not 50 percent—far from it—but it was a start.
Our table, like most of those around us, was silent as we sat back down. The one ally that we seemed to have at our table smiled and welcomed us back. “You all looked so adorable out there!”
“Thank you!” I said, truly appreciating her words.
One of the jocks at our table asked Bill a question. “What did the old dickhead want out there?”
“He wanted to throw us out. Said that we didn’t belong there and what we were doing was wrong.”
“No,” I clarified. “Not wrong—reprehensible.”
“Why?” the jock asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t understand it. This is all a surprise to me. But at the same time I don’t see that it’s wrong. So what if you want to dance with a guy? Doesn’t impact me or him in any way that I can see. I don’t know why people get so bent out of shape about it.”
Bill smiled at the unexpected encouragement. “Thanks, man! I appreciate hearing you say that.”
“No problem.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” the other straight man at the table said. “I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. And I don’t want to understand it. And I don’t want to be around it.” And the man got up and left the table, leaving his date sitting there. Interestingly enough, his date was the woman who had encouraged us so openly. Go figure.
The first guy—I really should learn the names of these guys if they were gonna surprise me and be supportive of us—asked Bill, “Do you think he’s gonna make any more trouble for you tonight?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Bill answered very honestly. “He doesn’t like to be seen as losing his standing, especially to some ‘kid’ like me, and even more so because I’m gay.”
“Okay. So I’ve got to ask,” the guy said. “How did you keep that big a secret from all of us for all these years? Why? How?”
“Gay folks have had to blend in for thousands of years simply in order to survive. A lot of guys get all bent out of shape over us just being around. We hide simply to stay alive and survive. Otherwise a lot of folks would make our lives a living hell. And in terms of how—well, we’re not all that different from everybody else, and we learn to be very, very good at blending in. Everybody’s got secrets. Everybody has got things that they hide from everyone else, things that they think will cost them standing, will cost them respect of others, things that others would make a snap decision about. If everyone’s secrets were to be laid on the table, I think the world would be a far richer place.”
“You should be a preacher,” the one woman said.
“No, thank you.”
“Well, then a motivational speaker or something. You’re really good at making a case and selling it.”
“I’ve been telling him that for a long time,” I said, finally joining the conversation.
Much to all of our surprise, we had no interruptions to our meal. The hotel staff started to serve the salad course, followed quickly by the entree and then the dessert. When the band started to play again, we returned to the dance floor, this time accompanied by lots of other dancers as well.
I stood behind Bill and wrapped my arms around his torso. He leaned his head back onto my shoulder. Barely moving, we danced like that in one another’s arms for a few minutes. I realized that he was blowing his standing completely out of the water with this dance. His jock buddies had always seen him as one of them, another tough guy, another jock. With this dance, he was allowing another man to hold him. He almost looked vulnerable.
After so much food earlier and such mellow dancing, we needed a break. Bill wanted to spend a few minutes with his fellow jocks, although I wasn’t sure how that was going to go over. He and Jeremy went off together, leaving me with Jeremy’s date, whose name, I had learned earlier, was Carl. Really, I wish I wasn’t so bad about people’s names. Everybody has one; I needed to learn them and use them.
Carl and I chatted, even though it was difficult going for us. We had nothing in common other than that we both liked dick. I asked him about where he was from, what he was studying—things like that—and then we were sort of out of things to talk about. It was gratifying to know that even someone who looked as good as this guy was as much of a failure at conversation as I was.
Across the room, we could see Bill and Jeremy talking with some of their buds, or at least they had been buds until they saw the two guys walk in with male dates for the prom. Who knew what was happening now. I would very much have liked to know what was being said. I turned to Carl and said, “I wonder what they’re talking about?”
“I was wondering the same thing. You know some of them; I’ve never met them before.”
“I don’t really know them. They kind of run in a different circle than I do. You probably have more in common with them than I do—you both speak ‘jock’, and I don’t.”
He chuckled. “Oh, darlin’, it’s all a big stage show. You just have to learn your character and learn your lines.”
His comment made me laugh too. I didn’t know what our dates were talking about across the room, but I doubt that it was as entertaining as our conversation had turned out to be.
“So when do we walk over there to check on them?” I asked.
“We don’t—unless someone throws a punch, and then we go in like gangbusters.”
“But damn, I really want to know what they’re saying.”
“Nobody has been yelling or throwing things, so they’re doing pretty well. Notice how many of the guys have their hands in their pockets.”
I hadn’t actually noticed it until he pointed it out. “Is that a good thing?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I guess it’s good that they’re not holding their hands over their butts.”
“Usually a sign of stress in straight men when they do that.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Best they not find out. We don’t need the competition.”
Bill and Jeremy came back.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“For the most part,” Bill answered.
Fortunately, our conversation was interrupted by the principal taking the microphone. “Can I have your attention, please. Attention. We come now to an important part in our evening. It is time to reveal the results of the voting for Prom Queen and Prom King. The votes have been tabulated and verified, and it gives me great pleasure to announce that, by a wide margin, you have elected Bill Crowell as your Prom King.”
Bill looked shocked, but pleased as well. We all congratulated him. I leaned over to Carl and whispered, “Does that make me his Queen?”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“Damn. Wouldn’t you know. Hey, wait. Does that mean that he’s no longer my date if… oh, crap. They wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?”
But they did. When the principal announced the name of the Prom Queen it was none other than Sue, the cheerleader who had been pursuing Bill so relentlessly for so long. Who knew what his coming out tonight would do to the entire situation. Both Bill and his queen were called to the front of the room, where they were formally crowned with their respective crowns.
Music played and the crowd applauded. And I swear that Bitch Queen—it was official, that was what I was going to call her—smiled at me. But I’m sure it was not a friendly, “I’m so happy for you” smile. No, the bitch was pleased that she was finally at Bill’s side.
After the applause stopped, she passed her flowers to one of her ladies-in-waiting—or whatever they called her bitchettes—and then she and Bill went to the center of the dance floor for the traditional dance of the king and queen. She was supposed to let him go when the song ended, but she had no intention of doing that, and Bill was being entirely too much of a gentleman. I knew immediately what she was doing. Turning to Jeremy and Carl, I said, “Quick, get out there and stick close to him. Make her aware of your presence.”
“Got it,” they said and immediately headed out to the dance floor. They took up post right beside Bill and Bitch Queen while I stood off to the side, fuming. Finally, I reached a conclusion. I marched right across the floor and interrupted them. “May I cut in?” I said ever so sweetly.
“No,” she answered.
“I didn’t ask you.” Turning to Bill, I waited expectantly.
“Um, sure,” he said, looking glad to step away from the scheming woman’s grip.
I stepped in and took his place. Smiling as sweetly as I could, I said, “Congratulations on your selection. I’m so pleased for you.”
“You’re just jealous that I got him,” she said with what could only be described as an evil smile.
“You got a dance, darlin’,” I said, borrowing Carl’s favorite word, “but I got his heart… and his glorious lips… and those legs… and that chest with those two perky nipples and all that chest hair… and his abs… oh, his abs, let me tell you, you don’t know what you’re missing. When the man gets naked, it is a true wonder to behold. And when he’s lying on his back beneath me, all hot and sweaty, well, there is no other more glorious thing in the world to behold.”
As I expected, she was turning red with anger at that point. But at the same time she didn’t want to lose face in front of her peers. She pasted a fake smile on her face. I didn’t give her a chance to say anything, just continuing on with my monologue.
“And when I kiss him each night when we crawl into bed together, naked, oh, let me tell you, it makes my toes tingle. The man knows how to kiss like no other man I’ve ever kissed. He holds a PhD in how to use his tongue.”
The song to which we were dancing ended. She immediately started to pull away, but I held her tight and said, “Don’t mess with me or my man, sister. I play for keeps, and I take no prisoners.” I smiled a disgustingly sweet smile at her and said, “Have a lovely prom,” as I stepped away to return to Bill.
Carl and Jeremy had stuck close to me while I danced with queenie. When I left to head to Bill, they were behind me immediately. When we got back to our table, Carl and Jeremy looked at Bill and practically purred with delight. “You should have heard him! Oh, it was wonderful!” Carl mimicked me while he repeated, “You got a dance, darlin’, but I got his heart.”
Bill laughed which made me happy. He hugged me, and we danced again. Those around us seemed perfectly at ease with two men openly displaying affection in their midst—or so I thought.
The band played a couple of faster songs that had everybody on the dance floor moving at a frenetic pace for a good ten minutes. When we took a break, a jock buddy of Bill’s handed him a bottle of cold water, which he drained. It had been hot out on the dance floor from all of the body heat as well as the vigorous dancing.
Jeremy and Carl were still dancing. I had to pee, so I left Bill alone at the table for him to catch his breath while I went off to tend to business. When I came back, maybe four or five minutes later, there was no sign of Bill. In fact, there was no sign of anyone at our table. The dance floor was still crowded so I assumed that maybe the bitch queen had reappeared and dragged him back out onto the dance floor.
When Carl and Jeremy reappeared not more than a minute later, they asked if Bill was still outside.
“Outside?”
“Yeah, we saw him leave with a couple of the guys. They had their arms around one another, which seemed a little odd to us.”
“When did this happen?”
“Maybe two, three minutes ago.”
“Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong. Come on! We’ve got to find him!”
The three of us raced out of the building and into the parking lot—where I found new evidence in the existence of a deity. The first thing I spotted when we exited the building was our limo driver facing down four guys younger and in better shape than him. He was giving them major attitude and demanded that they tell him what was going on. He told them that he had seen Bill earlier and knew that he had not had a drop of alcohol then. He told them to put Bill into the back of the limo and he would race him to the hospital, because something serious must be wrong. But the four guys, two holding onto Bill and two guiding the others, were adamant that they would take care of the problem. The limo driver, as he explained to us later, as a father with teenage daughters, was well versed in the drugs of the street and immediately suspected that Bill had been drugged.
Carl, Jeremy, and I raced over, evening the playing field so that it was four against four. Without waiting for a second I demanded, “What the hell is going on here? What have you done to him?”
Carl was bigger than me and made an intimidating presence, which he was using to its fullest advantage. He was not doing just that, though, but was also dialing his cell phone. He hit three keys before pressing call. He had the call on speakerphone so we all heard, “9-1-1. What is your emergency?”
“I need police and an ambulance at….” He gave the name and address of the hotel. “And please notify hotel security that there has been an assault at their property. I’m looking at the four assailants right this minute, and while I may not be able to restrain all four of them, I can assure you that at least one of them will be here when the cops get here—even if I have to sit on the punk to do it.”
“What is the nature of the assault?”
“A friend of ours has been drugged with something. He was fine, walking, talking, dancing, and now not more than ten minutes later he’s unconscious and unresponsive.” Turning his attention to the four guys holding and guiding Bill he said, “What the hell did you give him? Huh? What did you give him?”
For nearly thirty seconds they held their resolve, but then one of them started to bolt. I reacted immediately and took off, tackling the son of a bitch to the ground. I heard cloth rip, and I wasn’t in the least concerned about whose it was.
“Going somewhere?” I asked as I pulled his arm behind his back and did my best to keep him on the ground. “What’s the hurry?” And then I started yelling at the top of my lungs, “Help! Help! I need help! Help! I need help!” I kept repeating the same words, over and over again at the top of my lungs. The hotel was busy that night, so someone heard me yelling, and before long a security guard from the hotel was racing toward us.
Another of Bill’s “buddies” decided to try to make a break for it, but he didn’t get any farther than the first when the limo driver took that one down. Staring daggers at the two remaining, one on each side of Bill, Carl said, “Don’t even think about it! You two, put him down and get on your knees—now! Do it!”
By that time we all heard sirens in the distance. Wherever they were coming from, they closed the distance between them and us very quickly. Within a minute, the parking lot was filled with flashing red and blue lights and a surprising number of cops, along with two EMTs and a couple of fire trucks.
I was relieved of my captive, as was our limo driver. The other two were also taken into custody. I raced to Bill’s side where the last two had dumped him. Did he have a pulse? Was he breathing? Yes and yes. Okay, so far so good.
The two EMTs gently but firmly displaced me and started checking Bill over as well. While they did that, I stormed over to the four idiots in custody and started yelling at them: “What the hell did you give him? Huh? What? Talk, you morons! What did you drug him with?”
Three of them stood silent, but one spoke—it only takes one. “She told us it was just some G.”
“G what? And ‘she’ who?”
“GHB.” But the talker wasn’t saying anymore as his three buddies silenced him. At least we knew what had supposedly been given to Bill.
“How much?” one of the cops demanded. “How did you give it to him?” When he saw that no one was talking he upped the ante. “You do know that an overdose of GHB can kill someone, right? By withholding information you are impeding his care. And if he dies, that ups the charges even higher. It would be premeditated murder.”
Another one spoke that time, clearly scared. “She put it in a bottle of water. I think she emptied two capsules into the bottle before she gave it to us.”
“Who?”
“Sue.”
“That fucking bitch!” I screamed. “Where is she? Sue, you bitch! Where the hell are you? I know you’re here somewhere.” Turning back to the guys, I demanded, “Where were you taking him?”
Another one spoke. “To my car. We were supposed to drive him over to the motel.”
The cops intervened to question those in custody before radioing for back-up at the location of the motel. With a room number in hand, one cop raced off to the nearby motel to join the others and hopefully take the scheming bitch into custody. Certainly not a very queen-like act on her part.
We had just covered GHB, Ecstasy, and other similar drugs in a health class the week before, so I knew that GHB could be deadly, but that chances of an overdose were fairly remote. Still, Bill was exhibiting some clear signs of being given too much. He was unconscious, for one. Too much of some drugs could lead to overheating that can cause serious damage.
The ambulance crew loaded Bill onto a stretcher and got him into the ambulance, immediately starting two IVs, and injected medication into both IVs. I could only guess that they were trying to counteract the effects of the GHB that had been slipped to Bill.
The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur for me. I was fully aware of everything that was happening, but the time factors involved were a little confusing. It seemed like only a moment after leaving the hotel parking lot that the ambulance was at the hospital and Bill was being taken into the ER. And then another moment after that, Jeremy and Carl were joining me in the ER.
I called my mom and dad and alerted them to what had happened. By the time they arrived at the hospital a short while later—really, how had they gotten there so quickly?—the cops from earlier had arrived as well, reporting that they had taken the person in question at the motel into custody and had ascertained that she had indeed drugged the water with GHB mixed with a little Ecstasy, or what she assumed was Ecstasy. She didn’t know the person who sold it to her, so all she had to go on was his assurance that it was the real stuff. She had several additional capsules of each that she hadn’t used. The police turned one of them over to the hospital for immediate testing to determine what exactly had been used to drug Bill.
I wanted to ask more, but I honestly didn’t know what to ask.
We waited. We walked. I was numb. We walked some more and waited some more. Finally, a doctor alerted us that Bill was awake and was asking to see us. Several of us raced into the exam room, to see him looking awake but a little tattered and battered by the whole experience.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” I asked, taking his hand in mine.
“Like I just ran a marathon,” he answered very honestly. “What happened?”
“Your queen drugged you. She spiked the bottle of water that your buddies gave to you after we came off the dance floor. You were hot and drained the bottle. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back you were gone. We raced outside and caught up with four of your nearest and dearest friends carrying you to their car.”
“They were trying to help me?”
“No, darlin’,” Carl said. “They were gonna haul your sorry ass over to the motel, where the Bitch Queen was ready for you. She was gonna get you naked and try to do you. She gave you a date rape drug.”
It looked like Bill was going to be physically sick. Carl continued, “I guess she didn’t know that when you give a date rape drug to a man, in addition to loss of consciousness you also turn off the hydraulics that are sort of important to what she wanted to do. She was gonna have to work really, really, really hard to get you hard.” He chuckled a little, which helped to distract Bill so that he didn’t look quite so green.
When a nurse popped into the exam room to check Bill’s vitals, he asked, “When can I get out of here to go home?”
“You’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We’re trying to get a room for you right now.”
“No. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed,” he said decisively.
“Not going to happen,” she said very matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it will.” He sat up and started to pull the tape off the IV on his left arm. They’d had to cut his tux shirt off him earlier, which he just noticed. “Oh, crap! The shirt was rented.”
The nurse yelled at Bill to not touch the tape. Hearing the commotion, a doctor stepped back into the exam room. “What’s wrong in here?” she asked.
“He wants to go home and is about to try to pull out his own IVs,” the nurse explained.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Bill.
“Tired. Like I’ve run a race. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed. And don’t worry—I’ve got great people who will be with me every minute.”
“Your blood work is back, and I’m feeling more comfortable with the results now. As long as you have someone who can stay with you tonight and watch you through the night, and as long as you’re willing to sign a release form, I’m willing to let you go home. How does that sound?”
“Deal. Get these out. I want to go home.”
The nurse removed one IV, bandaged the spot, and then repeated the move on the other arm. The instant she was finished he hopped down off the exam table. I could tell he wasn’t fully back to normal. To me he looked a little woozy. I asked him to lean on me, and, surprisingly, he took me up on the offer.
We were just about to depart when someone told us there was some paperwork that we needed to finish first. Bill noticeably stiffened, and the scowl on his face intensified.
My dad saw the same thing. “You boys go on outside. We’ll finish this up and be right out.”
“Thanks,” Bill said gratefully.
When we stepped out of the building, I realized that I had absolutely no clue what time of day it was. Both Carl and Jeremy were still with us, and, much to my surprise, so was our limo driver. I was stunned that the man was still there, patiently waiting for us. When he saw us approach, the man got a huge smile on his face and said, “It’s so much better to see you upright, Mr. Bill!”
He held the door open for us, and I got Bill inside. I had Carl and Jeremy stay with him for a minute while I dashed back inside to tell my parents that the limo driver was going to take us home. I ran back out to the car, got in, the driver closed the door, and then we were moving, reversing our earlier course, first taking Carl to his dormitory.
After Carl and Jeremy said their farewells, we drove Jeremy home. Between Carl’s drop-off and Jeremy’s drop-off, Bill fell asleep leaned up against me. His head rested on my shoulder. He didn’t stir when Jeremy got out of the car. I quietly wished him a good night and thanked him for his help throughout the evening. The man had surprisingly turned out to be a decent human being and a good friend.
As we drove away from his house, I really wished that we had had a few more minutes to talk, to prepare him for some of the crap he was likely to get on Monday morning when we returned to school. Showing up at your senior prom with a male date wasn’t something most jocks did, and it was certainly something that would generate a certain amount of fallout on Monday morning. Thinking about it for a moment, though, I decided that Jeremy was probably better able to handle stupid crap from his “friends” than most others. He could, after all, kick their butts with no difficulty.
Finally the limo pulled into our driveway. I gently woke Bill. “What?” he asked in a very groggy voice.
“We’re home. We need to get out and go inside.”
Getting him out of the car was a surprisingly difficult thing to do, all things considered, but with the driver’s assistance I managed to get him out. He was half-asleep on my arm. But his sleepiness was offset by his chill. His shirt had been cut off at the hospital, so he was standing there in just a thin strap undershirt. The night had been clear, but it was spring and we were in upstate New York, so it was rather cool. Warm nights didn’t hit this part of the world until mid-July.
I thanked the driver profusely for his care of us that evening. Bill was together enough to reach into his wallet and retrieve a fifty-dollar bill that he had tucked away earlier for tipping the driver. He shook the guy’s hand and passed the tip to him, adding his thanks to my own.
We waved good-bye and made our way inside. My parents, surprisingly, were not home yet. I had thought, given our two stops on our way here, that they would be here already. I could only assume that they would be along soon.
Inside the house finally, Bill was thirsty, so I got him seated at the counter in the kitchen and got him a bottle of cold water. I didn’t stop to think how that must have seemed to him, since that was how he’d been drugged in the first place, but if he minded he didn’t seem to show it. He drank slowly from the bottle and then set it down.
“I want to go take a shower,” he said as he stood from his stool. I walked behind him as he made his way into the bathroom, shedding his clothes once inside. While he showered, I picked up his clothes, folded them as neatly as I could, and went to retrieve a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for him to put on. I could still hear the shower running, so I took a moment to get out of my tux as well, hanging it up to keep it neat. Dressed in my own sweats and T-shirt, I returned to the bathroom just as Bill was turning off the water. I handed him his towel, and he quietly dried himself. When he was ready, I exchanged the towel for the clothes.
We returned to the living room, where Bill flopped down on the sofa, clearly exhausted. It only took him about a minute sitting there to decide that this wasn’t going to work. “I’ve got to get to bed,” he said, standing. “I’m gonna fall asleep here if I don’t.” I accompanied him to the bedroom and got him into bed, kissing him and telling him that I loved him. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
While Bill slept, I thought. Sadly, he had been the victim of another assault. This assault came in a different fashion, but it was an assault nonetheless. When I heard my parents come home, I slipped quietly out of bed and went out to see them for a minute. They told me that they were later getting home than we were because they had been talking with the cops about pressing charges against all five of the conspirators. Both my mom and my dad were apparently somewhat vigorous in their request for the harshest possible punishment. They were tired, I was tired, so we all called it a day and went to bed. What a day it had been.