The Black Sheep Ballroom

            The tuxedo didn’t fit right. 

Loose around the chest and tight around the wrists, he stood staring at the full length mirror, wincing at the image before him.  He didn’t bother looking at his face or his hair.  It was his brother’s tuxedo that bothered him.  It wasn’t that it didn’t fit him well.  It wasn’t that despite all of his family’s money, he didn’t even own a tuxedo for himself.  No.  It was that he was wearing one of the penguin suits that he had refused to wear over and over again.  Standing there, wearing that ridiculous outfit, he saw the man he had told himself as a child that he would never be.  He looked like his two older brothers.  He looked like his countless uncles.  And worst of all, like his father.  He was nauseated by his own reflection.

            Making his way through the long hallways of the mansion, he passed by dozens of beautiful paintings but paid them no mind, not even stealing a glance at the beautifully sketched landscapes or faces, the detailed work that no doubt took the artist weeks to create and his father only minutes to buy.  They were all so wasted gathering dust in the old castle.  They should be somewhere where they would be admired, but like everything else, his father just had to possess them, keep them for his own. 

            Sounds vibrated from beneath the floor while the staircase came into view.  It was his family’s annual ball; where all their rich, famous, and corrupt friends would gather and spend millions on an evening of trying to pretend they were actually dignified.  It didn’t fool him though.  As far as he was concerned, a ball was something from a fairy tale and his family was anything but that. 

            Stepping down the stairs, he took a moment to examine the view in front of him.  Through a pair of enormous oak doors was the ballroom.  A grand spectacle, the floor and walls shining with a golden hum, tracing up to an enormous mural on the ceiling.  Its image detailing a nude man standing atop a mountain with others still on the climb, reaching up for assistance.  Glass chandeliers with hundreds of candles hung from the mural, their light radiating off of the rest of the room.  Most would have thought it angelic.  But he knew what it really was.  Overblown.  Expensive.  Unnecessary.   It was just one of his father’s narcissistic ways of trying to impress.   

              He hated the ballroom enough on a normal day but it was made even worse by the dozens of well-dressed people now gracing its floors.  The men in their tuxedos and bow ties, slicking back their perfectly groomed hair as they drank from their glasses.  The women with their long dresses, all trying so desperately to stand out from each other.  All of their glamour didn’t hide how insecure every single one of them was.

            In a corner of the room, an entire orchestra played their assortment of instruments beautifully.  Each note sent shivers down his arm.  He couldn’t help be entranced by how precise each movement they made was.  Undeniably stunning.  He wondered how much they cost to play for the night.

            He moved toward the dance floor, slithering through the laughter and the wine toward the center of the ballroom.  Familiar faces, red with drunkenness.  Plump and crusty old men in their ten thousand dollar suits.  Their arms around their young wives that they might as well have snatched out of the crib.  Many smiled broadly at him but behind those smiles, looks of surprise at the sight of him.  His family threw enormous parties fairly often but he made it a point to never be an attendee.

            Past a pack of people ranting about how many zeroes their annual income had, he spotted his two older brothers and their wives.  He tended to forget the names of his sister-in-laws.  Both attractive in the way that can only be bought.  Both loving his brothers to the same degree.  He often considered getting them both pick axes for Christmas to help them with their gold digging.  He had to admit, though, their fake laughs suited their phony smiles.