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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

Tag Archives: Prom

Prom Toking

29 Monday May 2017

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, earth, wind & fire, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, My Father, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Youth

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616, 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Contact High, Copacabana, Friendly Dating, Marijuana, MVHS, Neighbors, Prom, Relaxation, Self-Awareness, Senior Prom, Weed, White Castle


Me at Prom Dinner, White Plains, NY, May 21, 1987. (Suzanne Johnson neè DeFeo).

I can say with absolute honesty that I have never rolled, smelled, or smoked a joint. No weed, not ever, as I approach my late forties. I have, however, gotten a contact high on at least a dozen occasions, over the past thirty years. Heck, I’ve probably been high a few times off of burnt oregano and gasoline fumes, as infrequently as I’ve exposed myself to endorphin catalysts in my life.

My first contact high happened in the vestibule of 616 East Lincoln Avenue, on the night of my senior prom, the third Thursday in May ’87. As with all things in my life at seventeen, this was unexpected, uncomfortable, and underappreciated on my part. I had just called to find out when the limousine was coming to pick me up before swinging across town to pick up the other four people with whom I was to ride. I had done myself up as well as my sinewy bean-pole ass could. With my father’s funds, I rented a well-fitting tux with a white shirt and peach cummerbund. I’d bought my friendly date Dara a white carnation, matching the once pinned on my tux jacket. My idiot stepfather tied my peach bow-tie. Unusual for me, I lotioned myself from head to toe, greased my hair down, and otherwise made sure I smelled as clean as a Carolina pine forest. Not that I usually smelled bad, but I couldn’t look like a po’ boy tonight.

It was almost 6:30 pm before I walked downstairs to wait for the limo. Right on the steps leading into the vestibule were my C-building neighbors and two guys I didn’t recognize. They were all smoking joints, and the smoke had filled a good portion of the semi-enclosed lobby leading to the front doors. My elementary school classmate Valerie was in this group, across the lap of one of the unknown young men, all as he felt up Valerie’s ass like it was his own. Part of her thong underwear was visible, as Valerie’s boyfriend gave one of her butt cheeks a good slap while she giggled. Her brother Ernie was also there, fully blazed up, apparently without a care in the world. I don’t think he went by Ernie by ’87, though. He was a low-level drug dealer at this point, and had bulked up a bit over the previous couple of years, to protect himself in his line of work, I guessed.

Screen shot from video, Mako, “Smoke Filled Room” (2015). (http://beautifulbuzzz.com).

Ernie asked me if I wanted a puff. I said, “Naw, man, I’m fine.” Him and his sister and crew just laughed like I told the funniest joke. But I knew why they were laughing. In the half-minute or so of standing around waiting for the limo, I was already high. So much so that I didn’t sound like the proper English-speaking teen I often was in public. I sounded like one of them, in slow motion even to me. A full hydro hit would’ve left me ready to do anything else other than go to the prom.

The limo arrived, and not a moment too soon. Even though I’d been in the lobby and vestibule less than two minutes, even I could smell that the weed was a bit stronger than my deodorant, lotion, and cologne combined. The one guy already in the limo with me asked if I was “okay.” I knew what he meant. “I just have a contact high, that’s all,” I responded.

I would’ve hated to admit this thirty years ago, but I needed to be a little high and a little more relaxed, and not just that prom night. It actually helped to be under the influence, even though the contact high only lasted for thirty or forty minutes. By that time, I had noticed that the non-alcoholic drinks in the back of our limo were alcoholic. My date and a couple of the guys, after they became little buzzed, asked me how I knew. I said, maybe for the first time in public, that, “I know from experience. My father’s an alcoholic.”

White Castle, 550 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY, circa 2015. (http://zomato.com).

In between, me, my date Dara, classmates Allison and Gina, and two MVHS upperclassmen now in college, went to White Plains for the prom dinner and dance, then to Midtown for Copacabana on West 34th, and somewhere around 2 am, for the White Castle on Fordham Road in the Bronx. I didn’t get home until 3 am.

I went to the prom mostly because I didn’t want to look back at my time in high school years later and feel regret about not attending. But the fact is, other than a feigned attempt at social protest during the prom dinner, there was little particularly memorable about the event. Not the rubber chicken or overcooked salmon. Not the music or the overextended small talk. Nor should I have gone on a friendly date to the prom. I should’ve either found someone I did like to go out with, and months earlier, gone in solo, or not gone at all.

But really, the main event for me prom night occurred in the two minutes before I walked out to get into the limo. I didn’t want to smoke weed, feel up a one-time classmate, or risk years of imprisonment in New York State. But even in the midst of a living hell, sometimes it’s best to relax a little. I have five 616 folks to thank for that reminder.

Pre-Prom Paradoxes

26 Saturday May 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, Pop Culture, Youth

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Celebration, Class of '87, Class of 1987, Crush #1, Dating, Friendships, Humanities, Humanities Program, Irony, Muse, MVHS, My Mother, Paradoxes, Prom, Relationships, Self-Discovery


“Stop Defacing Signs,” a stop sign ironically defaced, June 24, 2011. (Scheinwerfermann via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via cc-Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

This week a quarter-century ago was my Class of ’87 senior prom. Though I may tell some of the more boring and significant stories from this prom one year, this won’t be the case this year. Especially since the days before presented themselves with a theme that has remained a constant in my life for more than three decades — irony. If irony were a food, I could feed all of the Global South with it, and still have enough left to keep me in protein and P90X recovery drinks until I turn seventy.

And irony was a full-blown buffet the week before the prom. What told me that maybe my prom date “J” wanted more out of this arrangement than I did was an incident at our Humanities Program honors convocation that Tuesday evening (see my post “Prom-Ethos” from earlier this month). Mrs. Flanagan (then the Humanities Program coordinator for Mount Vernon High School) and the Mount Vernon Board of Education wanted to honor us collectively for making Humanities a grand success.

We had a keynote speaker, one who was a recent college grad and MVHS alum who had started her own business and wanted to talk to us about the value of the education we were about to pursue. It was an opportunity for our parents to share in our success.

My Mom decided to come to this event, only the second time she’d been to MVHS in four years. We got there, with Mom dressed in her best business dress, with high heels, hair done, light-brown makeup powder and black cherry-red lipstick on. I was somewhat dressed up, with a collared shirt, cheap black shoes and the polyester black pants my mother mail-ordered for me at the beginning of the year. The event was in the school cafeteria, where we were to have punch and snacks before the festivities began.

The first person I introduced my Mom to was J, whose mouth fell open like I’d slapped her in the face. She looked at Mom as if I’d been cheating on her with Lisa Lisa.  “J, this is my mother,” I said a second time. J just stood there, angry. Then she walked away in a huff.

“What’s wrong with her?,” my mother said in complete disbelief herself, with the “her” part lingering in my ear.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Clio [Muse of History] reading a scroll, (Attic red-figure lekythos, Boeotia c. 435–425 BCE), The Louvre, March 17, 2008 (Jastrow via Wikipedia). In public domain.

Crush #1 must’ve seen the whole thing unfold, because she came over right on cue, gave me a hug, and then politely introduced herself to my mother.

“Thanks,” I whispered as I walked over to talk to J while Crush #1 had a conversation with my Mom, something I’d hoped my prom date would do.

“That’s not your Mom,” J said when I reached her table. As if I would lie about something as serious as that.

“Yeah, J, she is,” I said, pissed that she’d assume that quiet me would suddenly become bold enough to bring an older women to a Humanities.

I knew Mom looked young, but she still had twenty-two years on me. Since she didn’t want to talk about it, I just walked away and joined in the conversation between my former crush and the woman who was the reason Crush #1 was my former crush.

That Crush #1 came to my rescue was ironic and poetic, given the ways in which my muse has come to my rescue over the years. That one of my nicest classmates acted a bit like an ass that evening contradicted everything I’d seen her do and say over the previous six years. That anyone would think that low-confidence me could walk into a ceremony with a thirty-nine year-old woman was both idiotic and ironic. Yeah, even in the land of friendships and emotions, irony walked with me, hand-in-hand and stride-for-stride.

Prom-Ethos

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, Movies, Pop Culture, Sports, Youth

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Tags

Cliques, College Planning, Crush #2, Dating, Ethics, Ethos, Humanities, Humanities Program, Manhood, MVHS, New York Giants, New York Mets, Prom, Prometheus, Relationships, Senior Prom, Senioritis


Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald as Duckie and Andie in Pretty In Pink (1986), May 2, 2012. (http://bing.com). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of low resolution.

I can’t believe that it’s been a quarter-century since I made the decision to go to my senior prom and to ask someone to go with me in the process. The fact that both happened should say that the things my classmates thought about me at the time were simply untrue, which also showed how little they thought of me to begin with. The fact that I stumbled my way to the prom, though, would say even more about the six years’ worth of isolation that I’d experienced between 616 and Humanities than anything else.

My senior year at Mount Vernon High School was hardly easy, between college preparations, senioritis, three AP courses (English, Calculus and Physics, no less), my classmates in constant conflict (see my post “The Audacity of Low Expectations/Jealousy” from September ’11), and my ever-growing list of adult responsibilities at 616. Not to mention checking out the months of October ’86 and January ’87 to watch my Mets and Giants win a World Series and a Super Bowl.

With all of that going on, I made a couple of decisions. One was to escape from MVHS as frequently as possible, which meant spending more time in the library or on the Subway or at 241st’s magazine shop, where I could find every conceivable porn magazine at the time. The second was that I wasn’t going to my senior prom. I couldn’t be so bothered as to get caught up in senior-year drama birthed from of six or more years of stress and trauma.

Several things changed my attitude, at least around the prom. With the end of my half-year of Philosophy and Humanities Music meant some more free time to turn around my grades (I had a 1.95 GPA during my second marking period) and to think about the immediate future of college. Most importantly, I realized that there were a few people around me who cared, if only in a feeling-sorry-for-me way. By the beginning of February, I decided to go to my prom, even if it meant going by myself, and to do what I could to salvage the school year, if only by a little bit.

But in making that first decision, I put off looking for a date in a serious way for the prom until I knew for

Prometheus Bound (1996), by Scott Eaton, March 3, 2010. (Scott Eaton via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

sure if Crush #2 had one. Through idle chatter with her and some of her friends one day in the hallway
outside of the Music Department, I knew she had a date, with whom I was never able to find out. I learned all of this by the middle of April. I wasn’t shocked by any stretch. I just felt like a dumb and bumpy toad wishing and hoping for something to happen instead of making something happen.

Another classmate (one whom I’ll call “H” for the purposes of this post) was my next and best potential prom date. In H’s case, I assumed that she was dating someone, likely a former upperclassman now in college, so my hopes weren’t high to begin with. Plus it would’ve been a friendly date, no out-of-whack emotions to hide or control, no expectations beyond a friendly hug. Other young women who were in their various cliques and relationships had their prom dates lined up months ago, whether they seriously liked the person or not.

I didn’t want this to be a big deal. I just wanted to go so that when I got older I wouldn’t regret not going. So I decided to ask “J,” if only because she was a friendly acquaintance whom I thought would help make the evening fun. J agreed to go to the prom with me, which was nice, if only because it might my decision to go a less stressful one.

Even in the midst of suddenly finding the emotional strength of a typical seventeen-year-old to take this step, I made several incorrect assumptions and errors in tripping my way into something as cliquish and social as a prom. Among others:

Ethos (2011) movie poster, cropped and altered, May 2, 2012. (http://www.amazon.com). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of low resolution and alterations.

1. My main reason for going to my prom was because I didn’t want to look back at my time in school later on and regret not going. I don’t regret going. But, in the end, it probably would’ve better for me to have hung out with folks at a Mets game or gone to a Broadway play, if only because the food may have been better.

2. Once I made the decision to go, I simply should’ve asked Crush #2 if she had a date or not for the prom. Period. Even if she had said “No,” it would’ve given me more time to ask other folks, or even to decide to go by myself.

3. I knew on some level as soon as I asked J that despite our agreement that this was a friendly date, that at least for her, it was more than that. A more mature person — me after ’90, for example — would’ve been vocal enough to let J know that I saw her as a friend, nothing more, and that I had other interests at the time (of course, it’s hard for forty-two year-olds to be that brutally honest, but a more honest approach would’ve been better).

My lack of same-age social activities over the previous six years left me only semi-prepared for all of the emotional and psychological torture that I’d be in for not only for the prom, but also for the summer to come. My social ethos was only beginning to evolve.

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