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hollered something like, “I just love this song,” and then I started todance, sort of, and she gave me this real cold look, I mean not in the spirit of things at all, and said, “You’re so obnoxious.”
    It went right through me. I felt as if somebody had caught me singing to the mirror or something, I mean I felt like a complete asshole. So ever since then I’ve sort of stayed away from Sandy Hunter because it’s no fun to be around somebody who used to like you a lot and doesn’t any more.
    I just about had a bird waiting in the line-up to get into the dance. It took like forever. The guy at the door was a disc jockey at the Huntsville radio station, and he was carrying on like a big fucking celebrity and making everybody wait while he flirted with all the chicks. You could hear the band start up and that just made me homicidal with impatience.
    “Take it easy,” Harper said. But I couldn’t, I kept sticking my head over the top of the crowd like a giraffe, giving the guy dirty looks. Finally I got to the door.
    “About time,” I said, but the guy just ignored me. He was talking about his wife, telling some kid he should’ve waited to get married. Too much temptation. “Sure you look,” he said, “it’s natural.” Like I give a shit, right?
    I tore myself away from these two Einsteins and went in. I got a stamp on my hand that glowed when you put it under a purple lamp. Whenever I saw that neon purple at the door to a dance it made me feel like I was entering an exotic kingdom.
    I went over and stood by the band. They were a Toronto group, Tommy Graham and the Big Town Boys. I’d seen them on TV a lot, and they seemed kind of corny to me, in their matching striped shirts and white jeans, all of them exactly the same, the kind of rock band that grownups tap their foot out of time to. But I’ll tell you, in person they were something else. I mean they could really play, even Tommy who’d always seemedlike a bit of a gearbox to me, mincing around with his little white guitar and skinny legs. I used to think to myself, boy, only in Canada would a bunch of gearboxes like these guys get on the air. I mean in England they got the Beatles and the Stones and in the States they got Bob Dylan but up here we get Tommy Graham and the Big Town Boys. But they had a great drummer. He had a set of black Rogers drums, a double tom and a double bass. That’s a lot of artillery. I stood by the side of the stage watching him play and I felt just the worst kind of envy. I mean I would have died to do something like that, but he was older than I was, maybe four, five years, so I figured I still had time.
    I looked around the room. I didn’t want to move or somebody would take my place. I saw Sandy Hunter; she was talking to a tall, sportsy-looking guy with a brushcut. Terry somebody. I think he was captain of the lacrosse team, a real bonehead but you don’t want to fool around with a guy like that. He kept giving me looks so I figured she was talking about me, telling him what an asshole I was and he was just dying for the chance for me to do something stupid so he could take me outside into the parking lot and kick the shit out of me. So I made sure I didn’t catch his eye.
    Greg came up to me but he was pissed. He did that all the time at dances, I mean you’d figure with those teeth he might behave himself, but forget it. Him and a couple of guys had gone drinking in the truck before the dance and he was all big and blustery in a way that made me nervous. Grabbing people and hugging them and all that shit. It was kind of a look-at-how-drunk-I-am number, real noisy, and frankly I didn’t want anybody to think he was a friend of mine. Nice eh? Well, there you go. I guess if you’re going to get drunk and behave like an asshole, you got to expect people to duck you.
    I saw those two sisters from Quebec. Man, they were good-looking, one with light hair, one with black hair; sharp little chins and black eyes. Like a