Step Into The Light (Poetry and Prose Journal)

Merryland

We can hear the telltale signs of the party before we can see it. A base that feels like a reflection of my heart- throbs well past the bursting point. It is at such a volume that I can imagine the dew drops on the grass under my feet jumping into a momentary mist.

For what is perhaps not the first time I cannot help but reflect on how piteously out of place I imagine myself. I never really went to parties in highschool. I imagined that my peers- for all their large talk were playing the role of self-liberated college students without having seen the script. And now I was the actor stepping into a role that felt vaguely monumental, something ritualized but as yet indistinct. This was the American college experience wasn't it? Isn't this what I am entitled to as a relatively intelligent and hard working member of the middle class. Would the hours ahead mark my first steps towards becoming the kind of smooth talker and smoother shifter of hearts?

"Welcome. Here's your wristband. Don't lose it."

The older brothers of this fraternal order lounge outside on rocking chairs. They smoke cigars as an afterthought. Their words are brief and knowing while they openly size up myself and my peers with that intoxicating aura of smug self-assurance.

These are the congregated elders whose absence would be noted but for whom participation is also out of the question. They do not speak to us, but for lack of dissent, grant us their approval to enter the sanctum sanctorum. I feel how I imagine a smuggler must when he passes through customs without even an eyebrow raised.

Somehow the poorly lit stairwell down to the basement manages to make itself feel darker than the night air outside. Thin rays of light catch the thick beat-laced air as it flows up and out of the doorway. I falsely imagine that the musk of sweat and spilled alcohol is tinged with the smell of marijuana.

Sudden thoughts of what mother-dearest and father would say if they could see me (their shining Dudley-Do-Right) spill out from the back of my head. The idea disgusts me and for an instant I am almost ashamed of being ashamed. The idea never crosses my mind that my parents had ever been my age.

To me they were the timeless bastions of wisdom and saintly virtue - never full of piss and vinegar and the confidence of the youth. I feel deliciously illicit even though I haven't even set foot on the floor yet.

I follow my fledgeling band of barely-even-acquaintances to find the freshmen boy's melt away into the crowd faster than Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade under a Russian artillery battery. I become suddenly aware that my knowledge of military history is worse than useless. The prowess of my papers, my GPA, matter nothing here in a flexible realm of social ritual and custom. I am a foreigner trying to learn a language without even the rudimentary guidance of a dictionary.

Where the boys broke free, the girls huddle conspicuously together so close that they are almost touching. Why should they feel as though some predator stalks them? I imagine velociraptors subtly moving undetected through knotted masses of sweaty entitled bodies, ready to snatch away some brave soul who wasn't accompanied by her friend to the bathroom.

One of the older fraternity brothers looks down into the crash of lights and sound and bodies. I imagine him wearing a Marine Drill Sergeant's hat and screaming at pledges who have bought their ticket at the price of a semester of indentured servitude.

Before all of the noise and sound can get to me I calmly make my way towards a back door that promises to open into the cooler night air. I passively smile at the passing faces- of whom none return my falsely confidential nod.

I measure the passage of time by the tone of the big base speakers that seem to be seeping into everything with their subtle tickling of the hairs on my skin. My mind seeks solace in random abbreviated snippets of memory while I try to make sense of what to do next.

Somewhere between the memory of my first German Shepard puppy (long dead at that time) and the sharply critical comments of an english teacher- something happened. To be clear, it was not the internal fortifying of my resolve. Nor was it the realization that maybe I just didn't enjoy basement parties.

On the wooden railing of a porch a soft hand fell over mine with just enough hesitation to possibly have been an accident. I still can't believe she did that. I mean I cannot believe she meant to at least. At the time my immediate conclusion was that she must have been more than a little drunk. As it turned out- she'd lost her group of friends in the crush of people and recognized me from one of those pre-orientation activities. She was looking for someone who she could walk back with.