Chapter 126: Take a Chance

Saturday, May 5, 1984 (continued)

I parked at the Hilton’s front entrance first and went in alone to check in. The desk clerk at first gave me a bit of a smirk, as if he knew I was getting away with something and was in on the joke.

Something in the reservation — a note, perhaps, or something else — caused the smirk to vanish and be replaced by a genuine smile.

“We’re happy to have you staying with us again, Mister Marshall,” he said, “and we hope that your stay is very enjoyable.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re most welcome!”

He had me initial and sign in the usual places, then handed over two keys. We were on the top floor. I hadn’t sprung for any of the truly expensive suites — but we weren’t quite in a normal room, either. I also had arranged late checkout, not only for us but also for Angie and Paige, and the rooms Cal and Andy had reserved.

You do only attend your senior Prom once, after all.

Well — except for Angie. And Laura, I think.

I headed out, then drove around to the doors nearest to the ballroom, where I discovered that this definitely wasn’t going to just be a quiet high school prom.

There was a crowd of about thirty or forty people outside, somewhat away from the door. Two security guards were watching them.

The crowd had signs saying things like ‘Repent, lest you burn!’ and ‘Sodom and Gomorrah High School Prom, Class of 1984’. I found that latter sign amusing, at least.

Jas looked at them and said, “Fuck! I guess I should have expected this!”

“I should have, too.”

Someone in the crowd spotted me and yelled, “It’s him! That Steve Marshall kid!”

I looked at Jas. “Go in, please, and see if you can get the desk clerks to tell anyone checking in to come through the building.”

“Will do!” she said, then hugged and kissed me.

By this point, the crowd had moved closer, with the two guards still between me and them.

“You’re going to hell!” one of them said.

“I believe that’s for God to decide, not you,” I said.

“The word of the Lord is clear!” another one said.

“I agree. It’s clear to me that the Lord Jesus Christ had no problem with homosexuals, considering that He never said anything about them,” I said.

“Why you...!” one of them muttered.

“Gays should be killed!” another one said.

“Let he who is without sin...” I said.

That got them muttering more, and advancing.

“Tone it down!” one of the guards said. “And move back!”

The other looked at me and said, “Sir, with all respect, please just go inside.”

“I think I’ll do just that,” I said, then headed in.

As I came in, Principal Riggs was coming out of the ballroom.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, getting a look at my expression.

“I won’t, then,” I said.

He chuckled softly. “Trouble?”

“We’ve got an unfriendly mob. Fortunately, they’re a small mob.”

He rolled his eyes. “Just what I need.”

“For what it’s worth, I had nothing to do with this.”

“I believe you! If Marvin Zindler shows up, I’m finding you, though. You can talk to him!”

“Happy to, Principal Riggs,” I said.

“One of very few people in Houston who would dare say that,” he said, chuckling a bit more.

Once past Principal Riggs, I headed over to the check-in desk. Mel was already in place, along with several helpers, and Cal and Andy ready to act as bouncers.

I let them know about the crowd, and they promised (‘threatened’ was probably a better word) to get me if needed. None of them had known about the protesters, so they must have arrived fairly recently.

This year’s Prom theme was ‘Take a Chance’. I knew it’d originally come from ‘Risky Business’, but Mel and her team had incorporated everything from casino gaming to Abba in interpreting the theme. I thought it was pretty clever, but then I’m biased. Every guy in a tuxedo was going to imagine he was James Bond at Casino Royale, I suspected, or Tom Cruise — or both! — and every girl might imagine themselves a Bond girl, or perhaps Agnetha or Anni-Frid. I doubted any of them would imagine themselves to be a high-class call girl, but ... maybe?

Similarly, last year’s ‘Far Far Away’ let all of the girls be princesses and all of the guys be knights, be it medieval or Jedi. Not that there was anything wrong with the girls being knights — or the guys being in peril and in need of rescue.

This year, perhaps some girls might see themselves as secret agents, and some of the guys might want to be Benny or Björn. Or, perhaps, they’d be Tom Cruise, who’d been both the rescuer and the rescued in ‘Risky Business’.

It worked for Angie and Paige, too. They were definitely taking a chance. So was Trish, who would undoubtedly be humiliated (if only privately) if, despite both her and our efforts, she still failed to win. And, of course, for Cammie, Cal, Mel, and Andy, who still had to navigate at least three more weeks without anyone blowing their cover.

Perhaps it was appropriate for Principal Riggs, too. Last year he was backed into a corner and had little choice. This year, he could have taken a hard line, laying down ‘never again’ rules. He hadn’t, and now he couldn’t. If the wrong things happened in the wrong way, it could hurt him, no matter how much last year had endeared him to most of the student body, and no matter how much positive press Memorial had gotten. As with most things: ‘What have you done for me lately?’

Jas came back about five minutes later. She said that the desk clerks would tell anyone checking in that there was a crowd outside the ballroom door and that they should go through the hotel. She excused herself to run to the restroom, saying she would be back in a few minutes.

I hoped Angie and Paige would get the message. I’d never gotten around to getting pagers, and here we were at a place where pagers would be useful. No help for it now, but hopefully it could move higher on the to-do list. We’d been so busy for so long that things I’d really meant to do were falling through the cracks.

I watched out the windows as the protestors yelled at one couple after another. Most of them didn’t make any secret of disagreeing, which warmed my heart. After all, last year’s seniors weren’t this year’s seniors, and last year could have been a fluke. I didn’t think it was — it felt like most kids had just added it to the list of ‘what makes Memorial great,’ but some undoubtedly disagreed.

Cammie came over as I watched. She looked out the window, too, then took my hand and shivered a bit.

“Just what I needed — stupid homophobic jerks!” she said, sighing.

“God must love assholes...” I said.

“He made so many of them!” she finished, grinning.

“Exactly.”

“That would piss them off!” she said.

“Oh, I already torqued them off.”

She giggled. “Good for you! Throwing the Bible at them?”

“I merely pointed out that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ never said a mean word about gay people, and that only those who were without sin should be throwing stones.”

She chuckled. “Oh, that would burn them!”

Then she quieted, squeezed my hand, and said, while pointing, “Wait. I ... that guy, and that one. They go to ou-”

She cut herself off, shook her head firmly, and said, “They go to their church. One I am never setting foot in again!”

“Those two?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Paul Byers, the thin one. The bigger guy is Jasper...”

That rang a big bell!

“Um ... damn. Can’t remember his last name. Oh ... wait ... Kent. They’re both Elders.”

“Jasper wouldn’t happen to be a police officer, would he?”

She blinked. “I ... don’t know? He’s kinda got the build for it.”

“When I was being questioned by Hedwig’s Finest, I caught two references to a ‘Jasper.’”

She frowned. “That’s ... um ... I think you need to talk to Elizabeth.”

“Me, too,” I said. “The thing that’s bothering me now is the idea of some hothead trying to arrest Angie or Paige under the Sodomy Law.”

“They can’t do that, can they? I mean ... what evidence would they have?”

“None, but ... yeah. It seems really unlikely. Still, if anyone tries it...”

“We’ll figure out how to get them out via the service halls,” she said.

“I may possibly know the layout of those,” I said.

She gave me a look. “Because...?”

“Dave Winton worked here in the early 1990s.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dammit!” she said, but she was giggling a bit. “You had to hit me with that on Prom night?”

“Apparently so.”

She elbowed my ribs, then pulled me back.

“Let’s pull back, just in case they spot us. If Jasper Kent is your mystery ‘Jasper,’ I don’t want to talk to him, even if I am safely over eighteen now.”

“Me neither, really. I’m glad to be moving away from here, really. There are plenty of good officers here, honestly, but my most recent experience wouldn’t get a five...”

I cut myself off and shook my head.

“What?” she said.

“I was about to make a joke that wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t lived in the 2010s. Probably says I’m more rattled than I think.”

She smiled. “Or very comfortable with me.”

“That, too.”

“So, explain.”

I chuckled. “I was going to say a ‘five-star review on Yelp.’ Yelp was ... will be ... um ... well, explaining that will take too long. Think of it as a way for consumers to rate businesses. Any business, anywhere, and everyone can read the reviews.”

“That sounds ... scary, really. What if people lie?”

“It happened plenty. It was ... interesting. More good than bad, but some bad. Also ... no starting business-reviewing websites in a decade,” I said, shaking my finger at her.

“I have no idea what a ‘website’ is,” she said.

“You’ll find out,” I said, chuckling.

Jas came back, and I took her hand, while Cammie went over to give her date a hug. I still wished it could’ve been Mel, but ... alas. Even free from her worries, this just wasn’t the time and place. Soon, but definitely not tonight.

Angie and Paige came around the corner of the hall leading to the lobby just a few minutes later. Even if they hadn’t been an obvious couple, they would’ve drawn a lot of attention. Angie was wearing a pale green tulle and satin dress with a sweetheart neckline. It showed quite a bit of both décolletage and leg.

Paige was wearing what looked to be the very same dress (in her size, of course), but in a deep forest green. The two both complemented and contrasted each other perfectly.

The icing on the cake was that Angie had her hair tied back with a forest green ribbon, while Paige had hers tied back with a pale green ribbon.

If anything, it was perhaps a bit too in-your-face, but I had to appreciate the attitude. Neither of them was ‘out’ at Memorial before, unlike Lizzie, and they would be very ‘out’ after tonight. If you’re going to do it, go big.

Mel did a credible job of pretending to be surprised, though she was playing to ... no one, really, thinking about it. The only one in the hall that didn’t know was Principal Riggs and, judging from his reaction (or lack thereof), I was very suspicious that someone had clued him in.

That changed when the two of them went in, with Jas and me following closely behind. The room was perhaps one-third full — we were still pretty early — but a cheer went up immediately, followed by a round of applause. I breathed a quiet internal sigh of relief.

Oh, there might be negative reactions from some students, now and later, but the important point was that we’d made a change that stuck. This group of students would support people who were ‘different,’ at least in this one way, and now it was a part of Memorial tradition.

Who knew if there would be another brave couple next year? The important thing was that any brave couples after this point would know this was truly an option.

As they had last year, the band started taking their places and getting set up just as the clock hit eight. They’d hired the same band, which I approved of. They’d done a good job last year.

This year, it felt like people were arriving earlier. The room was fairly full by ten minutes after the hour, when Principal Riggs took the stage.

He addressed the crowd, saying, “Greetings, Memorial Seniors and friends! It’s my honor and privilege to welcome you to Senior Prom 1984!”

Everyone clapped and cheered. After a bit, he tapped on the microphone, then said, “I hope all of you will have a great time tonight. Enjoy the music and the excellent decorations arranged by Mel Riley and her Social Committee. We will greatly miss Mel, but I’m sure she will be on to ever bigger and better things!”

That got another round of applause. Mel was fairly recognizable to anyone who went to school dances.

“Last year’s Prom made it into the national news.”

That got some laughter, and a few blank looks. Hard to believe that anyone had missed it, but we did have some new kids.

“This year? I have no idea. What I do ask is that all of you welcome and support your fellow students. One of the many things that makes Memorial great is that our students are a community. While everyone has their circle of friends, most of us know to treat others as potential friends that we haven’t met yet, even if they’re different from us.”

And that got another cheer, which made me happy. Sure, it was ‘Rah Rah Memorial’ stuff, but many of those who were here already knew we had some ‘different’ Prom-goers. Last year there’d been obvious opposition, even if they were outnumbered. This year, anyone opposed seemed to be holding their tongues.

“With that, I’ll welcome Mel Riley to the stage.”

He stepped back, and Mel stepped forward, to a round of applause.

“Thank you!” she said, smiling and performing a curtsy. “On behalf of the Social Committee, I’d like to welcome my fellow seniors to our final Memorial dance!”

As with last year, Mel got that to land the right way, getting cheers rather than sniffles.

“I’m proud of every dance that I’ve worked on, which is every Memorial dance over the past four years. I’m the most proud of this one. For those of you who aren’t seniors — I see you out there!...”

That got a round of laughter.

“ ... there are some great people who’ll be continuing on Social Committee, and I guarantee they all want to call me up next year and tell me how they one-upped me!”

The laughter increased at that.

“So, I’ll rephrase it: We are proud of every event we’ve planned, but we’re the most proud of this one. And, for those of you who are not seniors: We’re not done yet!”

Another round of applause followed that. Good.

“Everyone, please welcome Jeff Pratt and the Pratt Pack! Hit it, guys!”

The band went right into the same song they opened with last year: Huey Lewis’s ‘Do You Believe In Love?’ It was just as great a Prom opener this year as it was last time.

Jas and I were up and dancing right away. Just a few couples over, Angie and Paige were dancing, too. They got a few looks, but that was it. They weren’t bad looks either. Just curious ones.

I had to think about the late-2010s meme where the guy is walking with a girl — presumably his girlfriend — but has his head turned to look at another girl, while she makes a face. I had this feeling that more than a few guys were going to risk causing some trouble for themselves by paying too much attention to the gay girls and not enough to their dates. With Lizzie, there was never a chance, and therefore no fantasy, but with Angie and Paige? Anyone who knew them knew they’d dated boys before, and that’s about all the opening the average teenage boy needs for a fantasy threesome.

Not that everyone thought that way, not in 1984, but I think more did than didn’t. Who knows? My views were thoroughly influenced by the commonplace pornography of decades to come. These kids — mostly — weren’t. They’d probably snuck a look at some naughty magazines, likely read a few ‘Penthouse Letters,’ and some of them had perhaps braved the curtained-off areas at video stores, but pornography just wasn’t as accessible in 1984 as it would be even in 1994, much less 2004 or 2014.

If anyone looked upset with them, it was Mrs. Higgins. Even her reaction was muted, though. After all, this was just a repeat from last year. I imagined she might be seeing what had started with our friends three years ago reaching a conclusion now.

I swapped partners a few times in the early going. Cammie and Mel both got dances. So did Paige. Not Angie — who dances with their sister at Prom?

The answer, of course, would’ve been us — if we could. But, we didn’t.