Tim Sandlin - Skipped Parts

Down South, Fundamentalists like the Baptists and Church of Christ don’t believe in mixed dancing, but Mormons must be different. Or maybe Wyoming is different. Anyhow, the decadence of doing the twist eight feet from your partner in a fluorescent tube-lit room with more chaperones than dancers thrilled Chuckette to the bone.

She said, “Daddy’d die if he saw this.”

“So would my mom.”

They stacked Pat Boone and Chubby Checker 45s on a Sylvania record player and we danced under a basketball net. Refreshments were lemonade and cookie squares made out of Rice Crispies and melted marshmallows.

“They’ll stick to my retainer,” Chuckette said.

“I’ll eat yours.”

This room with walls the same color as Lydia’s face was like dancing in a brightly lit Ping-Pong ball. The chaperones made us change partners regularly so no one would feel left out. During a Sam Cooke song about this guy who was an idiot in school—“Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology”—I found myself dancing face to face with Maurey. Sam Cooke thought if he made all A’s some girl would get hot for his bod and what a wonderful world it would be.

“Having fun, Sam?” Maurey asked.

I was listening as Sam Cooke connected grade-point average to sex appeal. My fantasy life was peanuts next to this guy. “What?”

“Are you having fun?”

“After an hour, the twist is boring.”

“Sharon can do the shimmy. Dance with her.”

Sharon could do the dirty bird, mashed potatoes, and the itch, only the chaperones stepped in when she did the itch.

“That’s disgusting,” Maurey said as Sharon dug into herself like a flea-bit dog.

Dothan did a leer. “I’d like to itch her.”

Chuckette popped her retainer. “After high school, I’m joining the Peace Corps.”

The chaperones kicked a guy out for being from Idaho.

At the end, two Sunday-school teachers held on to opposite ends of a dowel rod and us boys were formed into a limbo line. Girls couldn’t do it because they were wearing dresses. We shuffled around to the music, pretending we were Negroes going under a stick. I bombed early on purpose so people would think I was too tall to see how low I could go.

Chuckette gave me this look that said I’d let us down as a couple. I played Hank, which I’d been doing a lot lately.

Dothan made the final three, but this one skinny little cowboy in boots could really get down there. He didn’t even take off his hat. When they gave him the prize— The Pearl of Great Price in a vest-pocket edition—he said bareback training made him limber.

Except for a fight in the parking lot between the guy from Idaho and a chaperone, the dance was over by ten.

“I should of jumped in the fight,” Dothan said.

Maurey shoved over right next to him in the front seat. “Whose side would you have been on?”

“Doesn’t matter, I should have jumped in.”

“Why fight when you don’t care which side’s right?” I asked.

Dothan threw a gap-toothed look of disgust over his shoulder. “Only an outsider would have to ask that.”

“You’re from Alabama.”

“After high school, I’m gonna join the Peace Corps,” Chuckette said again. She had me backed against the passenger’s-side back door. When she talked her retainer made clack sounds in my ear.

Maurey turned on the radio. “I thought you were planning to get married and have three sons after high school?”

“I might do both. Daddy says we can’t get married till I’m eighteen.”

We ? It’s like you go on a date with some girl and she construes it as a life-long deal. One movie and a sterile sock hop and it’s marry her or break her heart, although breaking Chuckette’s heart wouldn’t cause that much stress. I could have Lydia do it.

“I should have kicked that guy’s ass,” Dothan said.

Maurey turned up “Deadman’s Curve” by Jan and Dean. “Which guy?”

A plane flew over GroVont and I pretended I was the pilot, looking down. He’d probably miss the whole town, see nothing but moonlight off the snow and mountains. Every building on Alpine was pitch-black. The Forest Service lights were all off, and the Tastee Freeze. A glow came from Kimball’s, caused by the refrigeration units, but the White Deck to Chuckette’s could have passed for a ghost town.

The kitchen light showed from our cabin, but it was after 10:30, so I figured Lydia was on the couch in the living room. Hank’s truck sat parked in the yard. Otis stood next to it, sniffing a tire.

“Kind of pretty when everyone’s asleep, isn’t it,” Maurey said.

“That dog knocks over our trash one more time, I’m gonna shoot it,” Dothan said.

As we pulled up in front of the Morrises’ house, the porch light came on. “That’ll be Daddy,” Chuckette said. “He says we can’t waste electricity so he stays up until I get home. Mom stays up from worry for fear I’ll be in a wreck. She says if I stay out late, she won’t get enough sleep and she’ll be sick the next day and it’ll be my fault.”

“Sounds pitiful,” I said.

“They’re good parents.”

“Want me to walk you to the door?”

The Morrises’ front porch was the only lit-up spot in GroVont and that’s where we stood to say good night. I didn’t want to kiss her, but her face bent up toward me seemed to expect it. Sexiness and pity just don’t mix. When I leaned in to Chuckette’s thin lips, the porch light flashed.

“I’m in trouble now,” she said. “Daddy’ll make me ask God for forgiveness.”

“We didn’t do anything.”

“I had an impure thought.”

“I didn’t.”

I got back to the Ford to find Dothan and Maurey’s faces in a lock. I hopped in the front seat next to them.

“Fun night,” I said.

Dothan looked over Maurey’s shoulder. “She bite your tongue again?”

Dothan pulled up beside Hank’s truck and turned off the engine. We all three sat in silence, staring at the cabin.

“Good night, Sam,” Dothan said.

I opened the door, but didn’t move. I looked at Maurey. “You coming in?”

“In a minute.”

“I can wait. The lock is kind of tricky and we’d be less likely to wake up Lydia if we go in together.” Which were lies; the door wasn’t locked, and Lydia was either awake and getting laid, or she was already asleep and nothing short of a fire would affect her.

“She’ll be in when she comes in,” Dothan said.

“I can wait if you guys want to say good night.”

“Get out of the car, Sam,” Dothan said.

I looked at Maurey. She reached over and patted my hand. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

“I don’t mind waiting.”

Dothan said, “Sam.”

In the bathroom, I did the introspective mirror deal for a while. I stuck out my tongue to check the white moldy stuff that sometimes grows there. I wondered if Lydia really connected to herself by touching her tongue in the mirror. Seemed kind of stupid, but I guess you do whatever it takes to feel like you and the person in your body are related. I brushed my teeth with Maurey’s blue toothbrush, then I shook it as dry as possible and hung it back next to my red one. Maybe the basic way people connect is through the mouth; that would explain the French kiss.

Because the dryer was broken, Lydia had clothes draped all over Les’s horns. I tried to picture Les as a noble beast surviving the wilderness, then carried the deal onto some religion where awareness stays with the body after it dies and he was up on the wall knowing full well that a neurotic woman had hung bras and hose around his horns and stuck a Gilbey’s label over each eye. What indignities would fall on my body after I died?