Chapter 118: One Righteous Pile of BS

Sunday, May 1, 1983

The last dance was not ‘Save The Last Dance for Me’. That wasn’t even the second-to-last song. Our last dance was ‘Endless Love’, which struck me as a very optimistic choice for Prom. If Jas and I, or Lizzie and Janet, or (considering couples not dancing together tonight) Mel and Cammie, and perhaps Paige and Angie, or ... well, most of the couples here ... actually made it as long-term couples, they’d be beating the odds.

Admittedly, the oddsmakers would have no idea what to do with Angie or me. We were, as best we knew, unique. Perhaps the odds of a high school relationship working out are very good for people who get a second chance. How would we, or anyone, know?

The crowd gave the band a warm round of applause, and then they brought the house lights up and people started to leave. We hung out at our table for a bit to let the crowd clear.

Now that it wasn’t so much ‘Prom,’ I had more people come by and say something. Quite a few of those were along the lines of ‘Tonight was cool!’ or ‘This is going to be some story!’ Then I had some ‘I can’t wait to see the news!’ or ‘Never thought I’d see anything like this.’

All of those I counted as positive. There were a few ‘Can’t believe you guys went along with letting the fags ruin things’ or ‘Couldn’t you have just told them to stay home?’ or ‘They should kick all of you out, starting with the homos.’

Surprisingly few, really. It’s not like I hadn’t already drawn a line in the sand and made it abundantly clear which side I was on. That die was cast over a year ago. And ... these were seniors. They’d be gone. It was the conservative juniors that might be annoying.

After about ten minutes, Principal Riggs came over. He looked ... well, I don’t know how he looked. Not annoyed, anyway. Perhaps amused? He’d spent upwards of an hour arguing with some of his bosses, after all.

“Steve, could I have a word, please?” he said.

That, by itself, was telling. He certainly didn’t need to ask. If I was on his bad side, I had a feeling he wouldn’t bother hiding it from the people at this table, since he had to know I’d just tell them soon enough.

“Sure,” I said. I gave Mikayla a hug, then winked and said, “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, except maybe the ladies’ room. That might be a good idea.”

“Oh, me, too!” said Jas. All of the other girls agreed, making the guys shrug and smile.

I stepped off to the side, where Principal Riggs nodded to an empty table. I sat, and he sat, too.

“I could complain about you not warning me that this was planned, but...”

“Our part was loosely planned,” I said. “There was no coordination at all with Lizzie and Janet. Well, except that Lizzie and I planned that dance, obviously. I’m good, but I’m not that good without a lot of practice.”

He chuckled softly. “Got it. So, they didn’t know there would be a...”

“Support group? They knew many of us like them, but no, they had no idea we’d act as a group. In turn, we had to simply hope the crowd would support us.”

“That made a big difference,” he said, nodding. “I wouldn’t have intervened anyway, not unless Cam told me to. Cam wasn’t going to, not as long as Len said we might get sued. Well, that we might lose a suit. Sure, the suit would take years, but a loss is a loss.”

“I’d guessed as much,” I said.

He sighed. “They’re going to dump this on me, you know. If there’s a lot of backlash...”

“So ... don’t let them get going.”

He gave me a look. “This is a strange conversation, but I expected that. Okay, for the sake of argument, how do I do that?”

“You’ve got a unique opportunity here.”

“That’s a pretty ... interesting ... way to describe a headache.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m serious. This sort of thing has happened before, of course. The Rhode Island case — ` v. Lynch — and there are others.”

He nodded at that.

I continued, saying, “This is different. The difference is that, when Fricke actually went to the Prom, they had to hire extra security for fear of violence, the students were at best neutral, and so on. That’s been the case when this has happened in the past. Someone threatens to go, or asks permission, and the principal or school board or whatever says no. Then there’s a lawsuit and, if it gets heard in time, they wind up getting to go, but it’s a big mess.”

“And...?” he said, nodding along. I’m sure he knew where I was going, but wanted to hear me get there.

“In this case, we — the intrepid Student Council and Social Committee — carefully adjusted the rules so that there was no school rule in the way. The district has a rule, but we already had a finding by counsel indicating that the district would be fools to try enforcing rules like that. No one asked permission, because they didn’t need permission. Students themselves acted as extra security, and Janet and Lizzie were welcomed by the great majority.”

“So ... blame the students?” he said, chuckling. “I’m supposed to be on top of that.”

“No,” I said. “You’re still thinking ‘blame.’ This isn’t a case for blame. Blame says something bad happened. Nothing bad did happen. Students handled it. This is a ‘Rah rah! Go Memorial!’ story. We’re so cool that we’ve got a well-respected, popular student leader who happens to be gay, or lesbian, or whatever word seems best. She and her girlfriend are two-time state champions. They’re going to a great college. Et cetera and so forth. You didn’t need to be ‘on top of’ the students, because no one did anything wrong. We went above and beyond in doing something right.”

“That ... is ... one amazing piece of ... verbiage,” he said, grinning a bit more. “But you’re right. I can run with that. I’m guessing, since I haven’t gotten to see the news, nor heard anything about it, that that’s what you pitched to Marvin Zindler?”

“You got it. I said to him that, in my opinion, he’s very good at moral outrage.”

Principal Riggs chuckled and nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“Then I said that this wasn’t a moral outrage story. This was a feel-good story about good kids who were supported by other good kids. He liked it enough to interview me. If they used any of it, it’ll be hard to edit it in a way that reflects poorly on anyone.”

He stretched a bit. “In a way, I feel boxed into a corner. On the other hand, I knew this was coming and I let it happen, so I’m responsible for that. And ... thinking it through ... you’re right. If I’d intervened, the story wouldn’t be so clear-cut. Of course, if Barry gets his way...”

He stopped, then went on. “You know he’s going to use this in the School Board campaign? It’ll flood the news right before the election.”

I shrugged. “Most people who care about this were already voting for him. The question is whether the parents who weren’t voting for him, or at all, think gay kids at Prom are a big problem that demands immediate action. My hope is that they’ll think of the other things the school board is supposed to do and wonder why someone’s wasting their time on issues like this one.”

“Are you sure you’re only seventeen?” he said, shaking his head. “Sometimes I wonder.”

I chuckled. “Mom’s got the records to prove it.”

“I’m not sure if I’m going to be happy to see you graduate or miss the excitement.”

“I’m guessing that, if nothing goes wrong, we’ll leave Jaya Kothari in charge. She’s got a year to learn from all of us, and she’s starting from a very solid base.”

“I’ll let you go. I’m sure you’ve got something to do.”

“Probably, though I have a feeling that ‘watch the news’ is a bigger part of the evening plans than it was before.”

“Probably so,” he said, chuckling.

We both got up, then shook hands. He turned, then hesitated.

“That ... verbiage,” he said. “You were thinking of me the whole time, weren’t you?”

“I really don’t want to go through my senior year with a head principal who doesn’t like me. Even worse would be a new head principal, likely one who’s predisposed to dislike me. We’ve worked well together. Your agenda is the same as mine: work to make Memorial a great place to learn and mature. Lizzie and Janet are my friends, and if they wanted to go to Prom as their authentic selves, I wanted them to have that chance. Given that, it’s always been a question of how it could happen without lawsuits and shouting and protests and all of that.”

“Again ... are you sure you’re seventeen?” he said. “I get it, though, and I’m glad it worked out. Not that I really have a choice, but I’ll go with the feel-good story. It does have the advantage of being true, as crazy as that sounds.”

“I figure that we’ll know at least one part of how successful that’s going to be in just over a week.”

“That we will. That we definitely will.”

I headed back to my table. The girls were back, but in addition, most of the Student Council members in attendance had joined the group, along with Janet and Lizzie, about fifteen cheerleaders, ten or so football players, and ... heck. I don’t even know who some of these people were. Everyone seemed to be talking and having a good time.

Jas said, “That was a long conversation!” as I went over to her.

“We had a bunch to cover,” I said.

“So?” Lizzie said. “Is he pissed?”