Showmanship

5 - Walk the Moon, Dirty Shoes, and Floral Couches

Walk the Moon

You know those middle school dances that they portray on T.V. Like on Charlie Brown. The girls are on one side and the boys are on another, then eventually one brave boy brakes the sides and finds a girl to dance with. Then they dance the night away and fall in love and become high school sweethearts and have three kids.

And then they divorce leaving the children in emotional shambles.

Anyway, there is always this one song that gives the boy the courage to go get the girl - or viscera. It's this social cue that says "okay yeah. Now your allowed to jump around like an idiot and dance." You know, the song that the DJ plays when he gets tired of all of these stupid adolescents not dancing to the music he's playing.

I believe our DJ was getting tired of the adolescents staying on the different sides of the gymnasium too because Carol played that social cue song.

And I knew it was that social cue song because Dorothy was tapping her foot to it.

"Do you like the song?" I asked. The alcohol made me bizarrely confident, like a magic potion. A very evil magic potion.

I think Dorothy was shocked I said something. I hadn't said anything in awhile. Really I had just stared at her like a dope after Lucy left. Dorothy tormented her brain trying to figure out the drunk people - which is what I was supposed to be helping her with.

That hadn't panned out after I accidentally drank the most potent drink here. Three glasses, and I'm pretty small to be drinking three red solo glasses of hard liquor. Then I had a little bit of a fourth until I dropped it on the floor - I think.

"What do you mean?" She left her eyes from the crowd and stared back at me. She had left her post at the bar to make sure I didn't get kidnapped or embarrassed myself. I believe she had trusted Lucy with the job of drunk watcher.

Dorothy leant back on the couch. She hadn't crossed her arms and tried to hide anything, and I think it was because she didn't think I was going to remember her. I wouldn't remember the real her.

I could only see the outline of her figure because the lights were so dark in this back room, but that outline was enough. I didn't need to see. I could feel and hear. I could hear her deep sighs and her humming to the familiar songs.

"You only tapped your foot to this song," I said, basically admitting that I had been watching her the whole time.

Something different happened. Dorothy didn't tense up. She didn't reach away. She actually leaned closer, and I could see the outline of her lips and they were in a smirk except this smirk wasn't fake. This smirk was very real and it was very close to my face in a scary, good way.

"It's the song." I swear I could hear her say, except Dorothy's lips didn't move. They just stayed in that smirk.

But it was the song. It was my move. It was her move. It was our move. We both had our shields down because we were both drunk - and I know what your thinking. Dorothy would never drink underage, and you're right. I might of been drunk on booze, but Dorothy was drunk on the atmosphere.

The flashing lights, the heavy beat of the base. Everything echoed in her head like a big illusion and her brain had also disappeared into a big daze. That's the type of person Dorothy was. She didn't need a drug to get drunk, she just needed life. She knew that. That is why she came to parties.

She didn't take in beer. She took in the people. She is an observer and she knows it. People watching - that's how she gets her high. She isn't the only one who does that - sees bigger - a lot of people see bigger. The thing that made Dorothy so different is because she knew she saw bigger and it didn't make her better.