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amp sound. A musical genre you hadn’t considered: Wedding Metal. The daddy-daughter dance is the Judas Priest version of Diamonds and Rust. Halfway through, the band invites the crowd out on the floor and launches into something louder, chunky, choleric. You feel a tap on your shoulder.
He’s skinny—sunken cheekbone, anemic skinny—with a blotch of dirt sprayed across his leather jacket. His boney hand, corpse-cold, juts from his coat sleeve, encircles your wrist and tugs you into the crowd. Dancing in a rage, cutting the air, jabs in a knife-fight; a cock rooster; purple-tipped Japanese haircut. He’s a lightning bolt, a broken twig, a splintering creek from 10,000 feet.
Your pantyhose (the only black you wore) feel a size small and inch ever-lower down your crotch as you dance. You dig your thumb into your bellybutton and tug at the leggings. He swings an arm over his head, twirling an imaginary rodeo rope, and scoots closer and yells his name in your ear, trying to get over the band. It sounds like JoJo.
Carlos and Lola are seated at JoJo’s table. He introduces them to you, leaves you there, and goes for drinks. Lola corrects you when you call him, JoJo.
Rollo returns. You notice the bloody dagger, the size of a hairpin, tattooed inside his wrist when he hands you a beer. He slides his arm over the back of your chair and moves closer. Carlos and Lola leave for a smoke. Rollo says you are the most beautiful creature he’s ever laid eyes on; brags about his job as a worm on an oil rig; invites you back to his worksite so you can watch him lay some pipe. The fumes of his drugstore cologne rise from his rented suit like the hood of an overheated Buick. He brushes your leg and says, “I like your tutu,” in a sweltering whisper.
You stand as if to show off, smooth the wrinkles from your powder blue skirt and say, “It’s actually made from imported tulle,” give a curtsey, slip on your flats, adjust the bra strap beneath your sheer pink top, tell him to go fuck himself and stalk off toward the bathroom.