Prom Night

The music did something only slightly quieter than blare, nonetheless waking eight buildings of people early on a Friday morning. Looking out the window, you could see a white stretch Mercedes—a Mercedes!—double-parked near some trash cans, across the street from the tree with the homemade plywood support.

Half a dozen boys milled in the street, resplendent, shiny brown in their black and white finery, pinned with red carnations. The limo doors hung open, the dark portal of the sunroof gaped. The head boy, in a long white suit, with derby and cane, knocked on the door of the house next to the house with the pigeons and went in. "Turn that down!" a man yelled out a window on the other side of the street, and they did.

A taxi eased by, going up the hill toward the expressway and Manhattan. The boy in white burst forth, trailing girls in unremarkable cocktail dresses. There was some mild comedy reloading the car. Then they were gone.

I dreamt late the next morning of flying to my own execution, for something insignificant, for which there was no appeal. It was very minimum security: the stewardesses had no idea; I sat by the pressurized door with my seatbelt off, as we rolled through the streets of Newark looking for enough pavement.