Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls(18)

I’ve never danced before, I say. Nothing like that.

We’ll practice, she says. Don’t worry.

Now that the crying is over, a new circle has formed. One boy has taken off his tie, and he wraps it around another girl’s neck. When he does this, the two of them sway into the center of the circle. The girl bends over, plants her hands on her knees. She gyrates her butt up and down as quickly as possible, flinging her crimped hair around in a circle. It’s almost like the hula, I think, if hula were to be danced while bent over, to angry music in English, by horny white people. The girl snakes her tongue out of her mouth and taps the front of her braces with it. She flicks it in and out while she grinds. The boy holds on to her hips and pulls her butt into his body. At one point, he lifts his hand above her bent-over back. He moves this hand up and down, up and down, like he’s petting a dog or flattening dough. When everyone has applauded and screamed, Nasty! Hot! Get it, Danny! it’s the girl’s turn to take the tie and choose the next boy. She wraps it around Quince Pearson’s neck. I watch them dance like that. The pizza dough move, the ass bouncing, her left leg hooked around his back when they face each other, still humping.

Clarissa pulls me into the gym locker room. It’s so bright in here after the black lights that I have to blink it off in the mirror. My blue mascara and blue eye shadow are gooping, stinging. Open your eyes, Chink, says one of the girls coming out of a stall. Oh, that’s right, you can’t!

I am used to these comments—I don’t even remember when I began hearing them—but I have a white father and an uncle who makes shoes for white, beautiful celebrities, and I’ve known my Hanukkah prayers since I was a baby, and mostly, I don’t understand why other people can see something I can’t. This difference about me.

All hail power to the Earth, power to the Water, Goddess of the Stars and the Flames, Ni-How-Bru-Ha-Ha-Alikazam-O-Kamikaze.

Jesus Christ with the Wicca, says Clarissa. You are so embarrassing.

Clarissa knows the drill. I wear a pentacle necklace and make up spells when people give me the most shit. The sterling pentacle screws on to a small cobalt bottle. I tell people the bottle is full of blood, but it’s usually cranberry juice or some kind of essential oil my mom gives me for my nosebleeds. Once, I cast a spell on Ms. Dickhead, and she fell down a flight of stairs the very next day. I felt bad about that, cut off a lock of my hair and buried it as some sort of penance, but ever since this incident people tend to walk away when I start the chanting.

Seriously, says Clarissa, you need to practice before you go back out there. Show me what you got. You watched them, right? Show me.

Clarissa instructs me to bend my knees as much as I can. She uses her hands to help arch my back. She positions my legs so that they’re farther and farther apart. I try my best to do what I saw. I place one palm on each knee; I bounce up and down; I rock my head back and forth until my hair with its rhinestone clips goes flying. I find what feels like a steady humping motion.

You look like you’re having a total fucking seizure, says Clarissa. But I guess it’s not that bad.

I keep going. I rock my body back and forth. Like this?

Oh my fucking God. A voice. It’s Addison Katz. A few of the girls follow her inside the locker room. What the freak are you doing?

I stand up. Dancing, I say, like you. I’m here with Quince Pearson. We’re dates.

Oh really? says Addison. Her blonde hair is pinned into a knot on the back of her head. Spikes of it stick out so that it looks like a child’s drawing of a sun. Two thin, golden strands hang gelled beside her cheeks, and it’s all unmoving, bound by glitter hairspray. She’s wearing a bandana as a shirt. Well in that case, she says, you need to sex it up a little.

Addison and the girls tell me to try the Praying Cry Baby. They tell me this is done in a kneeling position, fists pumping in a tantrum. They tell me to rub my eyes with hard wrist-twists, toss my hair even harder. They tell me to cry like the hottest baby that ever cried.

Quince will bust his zipper, Addison says. All the girls nod. Clarissa looks to them—nods, too. We leave the bathroom in one big group, ready.

Back in the gym, the glow sticks have come out. Everyone is sucking on them, and their teeth glow dirty blues, pinks, and yellows behind their braces. All of us girls walk through the crowd, holding hands, until we make it back to the center circle. Some of the boys have laced larger glow sticks between their fingers. They move their hands around their bodies and above their heads so that the glow sticks leave figure-eight-shaped trails.

Club Boca up in herr’! the DJ spits into the mic. Are you ready to shake it?

He begins playing another song I’ve heard before. It’s called the “Thong Song.” Quince Pearson jumps into the center of the circle, raving, his face glowing lime green inside the hoops of light.

Show Quince what you’ve got! says one of the girls. Now’s your chance! and I feel a push.

I move into the center of the circle. Quince looks at me, but instead of grabbing my hand, or taking me in for a hug, or giving me one of his glow sticks, or spinning me around to hump me from behind, or patting my dough, or wrapping his tie around my neck, his eyes bulge and rim white. He backs up out of the circle and into the crowd. Sisqó sings about dumps like a truck and thighs like what. I know this is my chance. I know that to back away, to press myself back into Clarissa’s arms, would mean even more ridicule, being called a fucking wimp. I am a fucking wimp, but this could change all that. I know this could be the last time I am ever asked to a dance.