The Educational Experience soundtrack is here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8aXxdSi9kurEdSlp-nexGySMXNDg1f8T

5.

Now, let me be honest about this dance business. I had sort of decided to check it out ‘way before they sent me over there. First, because I just wanted to see if the kids were really all into it like LeeAnn said. And second, because I have to admit, I am a dancin’ fool. I mean, I’ll dance to a ring tone, right? And I’m pretty fly for a white guy--my redneck relatives used to tease me that I danced “just like a nigger,” back when I was still having anything to do with their dumb asses. Which…sort of explains why I don’t have hardly anything to do with them anymore. Stupid fucks.

Anyway, it turned out LeeAnn was right too. They’d gone all out. The gym was decorated like it was Prom Night, except it was tinsel, ornaments, lights, wreathes and all those big, gaudy Mexican ornament things they make out of construction and crepe paper and whatnot. I mean, to be honest it looked like the Walgreens Christmas tchotchke aisle had exploded in there. And while the teachers all stood up in the bleachers glaring down at the kids like stormtroopers ready to swarm the dance floor at the slightest provocation, all these chubby, chirpy little moms were still setting out chips and cookies on these long tables they’d also covered with red and green crepe paper and tinsel and Christmas candy.

Kind of elementary school, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

And they were straight jammin’, no lie. It was wall to wall boogie down on the hardwood and the dj was definitely doing his thing—Old School jams mixed in, too, which is where I live. Born too late, me. I mean, I intellectually understand Arcade Fire and They Might Be Giants and all that, and I salute them just for being there actually, given the sorry state music’s in right now. But if the bass ain’t bumpin’, it’s just not going to hold my attention for long.

When I walked in, the walls were literally vibrating from that Timberlake Let the Groove Get In joint. He’s Old School from the New School, that guy. And big old crazy Lakesha came dancing up and said, “I know I got this dance!”

We put on a show for real—I didn’t forget about the teachers up in the bleachers, though. I made sure to keep my distance no matter how far she backed that thang up. Course, it was a wide load to be sure. And the fact that she wasn’t alone didn’t give me a lot of room to work with. All her girls and then all these other girls made their way over  and kept bumping and yanking each other out of the way—I was sure somebody was gonna lose some weave over me before the song ended.

But I know how to handle that. I just do a slow 360, so that I wind up dancing with all the girls closest to me, but no one girl in particular. It was a little hard to keep up with all of ‘em, because they kept coming at me in little BFF posses, but if you’re real smooth about it, everybody’s happy.

I kept an eye on the guys, too. Over that way men are pretty strict about their women in general, not just about how they act around other men. I started seeing that nonsense in middle school already. I mean, one day this high school guy showed up one day and grabbed his little 8th grader girlfriend by the neck for talking to some dude or something. And the way he just snatched her up and held her against the wall was totally psycho. Me and some other kids finally started throwing rocks ‘til he got off her and started chasing and cussing at us. But she wore his hand print for a necklace for about a week or two even so.

And that damned girl thought it was love, right? That’s not love. That’s how a lotta women get killed, mistaking slavery for dedication.

But as a rule, men don’t worry as much about me dancing with their women as you’d think. It’s a backhanded trust thing, like I could not possibly be serious about any girl they could have. No, really--I heard a guy say it to this one woman I danced with at a free concert in this park one time. Everybody was dancin’ with everybody like they do out this way—in a club or at a party out here it’s no big deal for guy to walk up’n’ ask you if they can take “the little lady” off your hands for a minute. It’s kinda nice and neighborly—all “Pardon me, little lady” and “Well, don’t mind if I do,” you know? We’re still Roy Rogers and Dale Evans out here sometimes.

But that guy really pissed me off. When I brought her back, he went, “Don’t go getting’ your hopes up, baby. I’m about the best you’ll ever do.”

If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’—the bastard told her that in front of hundreds of people in the park that day. He was laughing, too. I would’ve kept on flirting with her if it hadn’t been a sort of rednecky area of town where that dumb ass woulda probably sic’d his all his brother cousins on me or something.

 The guys at the Christmas party weren’t weird about it at all.  A couple of ‘em seemed sort of proud I was dancing with their girls. Okay, some of the white guys were starting to give me the stink eye, I admit. And I wasn’t even dancing with white girls.

Maybe that was why.

Anyway, when the song ended, Lakesha gave me a slap on the back and said, “Jackie Chan got moves!”

“Sick dj,” I told her. “You want anything from over there? Soda or somethin’?”

She got all flustered that I’d even asked and said, “Naw, I’m good. You don’t have to do that.”

I had to really struggle to keep from teasing her for turning into a little Southern belle on me like that—it was the cutest thing I’d seen in ages. And the last thing I expected from her.

So I said, “I know I don’t have to. I want to.”

And two girls standing next to us went, “Ooooooooo…” just to make her go all girly again.

Except that she spun around and bellowed, “Shut the fuck up” and spoiled the moment.

I just laughed, though. And I swear, she sort of blushed. She was dark so it was hard to see it, but I could feel it. I don’t think a lot of guys really talked to her at all which upset me a little bit. She was a hard nut to crack, yes, but there’s almost always a surprise inside if you’re willing to do the work.

I got another surprise, too—the DJ segued to Buckjump by Trombone Shorty, which was pretty damned deep for a high school dance. And they had a whole routine they did to it, too—you should’ve seen everybody stepping lively out there and shouting “YEAH” on time with the band. It was pretty tight, I admit.

So I said, “You gotta be kidding me! Where’d that come from?”

“Band play that every time we winnin’ a game—in the las’ parade we was in, too,” Lakesha told me. “People was all dancin’ down the street—they be talkin’ smack about us, but we got the bes’ band out o’ all of ‘em, tell you that!”

Swear, I was dyin’ to hear their drum line rock the house after she said that. I was starting to like this school, truth be told.

“Trombone Shorty’s no joke—New Orleans, right?” I told her.

“I don’t know nothin’ about no New Orleans. Know you can dance yo’ ass off, though—where you learn allat?”

“Oh…here’n’there,” I said, sort of teasing her.

And she gave me this little smile and said, “She look like us, don’t she? One that taught you.”

“She does, actually,” I said. It wasn’t a front. I mean, Aisha didn’t look like any of the girls I had danced with, but she was black. Well, black with a little touch of Hawaiian. Got the picture? Nice, right? Hells yeah.

And Lakesha was thrilled to hear about her, that’s for sure. She lit up like the Christmas lights all over everything, and we shot the breeze for a while until the dj hit us with Rob Base—It Takes Two, no less. Which brought even the cops and teachers and parents runnin’ down from those bleachers and out from behind those tables to bust a move finally.

And they did it to make us laugh—it moved me that they were willing to get out there and make total asses out of themselves to entertain those kids. There were a lot of Taylors at DeGrazia, is what I realized at that moment—maybe not as good at teaching but they cared about those kids.

So I will never forget the kids busting a gut at all their crazy moves from back when they were street corner b-boys and girls--you could also tell the kids respected that part of their heritage, too. In fact, some of the younger b-boys started battling the old ones. I laughed myself hoarse watching them clowning on each other out there.

And to keep us in the Way Back machine we got Tootsie Roll –I’m sick of that song as a rule. It’s like you can’t go to a party or a dance or a club on the south or west side without hearing that at least once. And then you have to watch all the old girls get up and do things they really shouldn’t—I mean, they’ve got the rolls, for sure, but…yikes. It can be fun watchin’ them shake it like they just don’t care, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re one of their kids, man…it’s friggin’ embarrassing. All my homeboys’d be trying to drag their mothers off the dance floor—I’d be cracking up, myself.

But at this joint, it was the young girls out there droppin’ it like it was red hot—teachers swooped down on this one girl like vultures on road kill, trying to slow her roll. Which pissed off all the boys who were having a good old time watching her get low as she could go.

Delores shoved her way through all the others and gave the pole dancer a serious stare.

“Y’all always messin’ wit somebody,” the girl protested with a scowl almost as deep as hers.

“Girl, I bet your mother would whup all the twerk outta your tail if she could see you up in here dancin’ like that!” she told her.

And the pole dancer got all huffy and went, “Well, go git ‘er then! She right over there!”

We all looked where she was pointing and I swear, I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Her mother was over at the refreshment table wearing this really tight, super short red sweater dress cut so low in the front she didn’t have to bend over much to give all the boys in her line a good look at pretty much everything they’d come to see. And some serious back when she turned around to get some more sodas out of the cooler, too—she had enough to go around, too, lemme tell you.

“Lord, apple don’t fall too far from the tree, honey,” Delores said. “Git away from me!”

The girl just laughed—wasn’t even insulted or anything. She just started dancing again, but not nearly as nasty as she had been.

They were out to enjoy themselves, these kids. Buying leftover yearbooks as fast as the teachers could get them out of the boxes and chasing each other to get them signed and to hug and kiss and squeal like it was the 50s again—you would never believe kids like them could act like that, but it was cute as hell. I mean, it was a real celebration. Something they would remember forever, even if it was six months after all the “real” graduation hoopla they’d missed.

And I’m not going to run down all the other amazing music they played, but it’s worth talking about what happened when they did this “Playlist Pause” thing. That was when the dj let kids and teachers request or cue up a few tunes, and all these girls shoved me up to the dj yelling at him that I was new there and they wanted to see what all I had on my phone—a little challenge, to see how down I really was, right?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to let them get all in my business. But then, I decided to try something sneaky on ‘em. See, I listen to funk from all over the world—Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Arabic and African R & B and hip hop from France…all that. The first cut, Love Story, had them dancing before they noticed Jarecki was rapping in Polish. That joint takes you all the way back to the best funk, ever—as soon as it starts, you know this guy knows this shit. And the kids went bat shit trying to get to the dance floor, where they stayed through the whole time I let him piggy back off my list.

But I let him get back to the local favorites pretty quick. And a whole bunch of kids came to find out “what the hell” that music was. I wrote some titles and performer’s names on the girls’ hands and little bits of paper. I liked that they were open to it, actually. But as I was scribbling “Rishi Rich” in this one guy’s yearbook, I heard all this screaming. And some kids damned near knocked us over running every which way.

I didn’t take it all that seriously until the girl the guy was with went all wide eyed. And then some other girl screamed, “That fool got a gun!” and her and her boyfriend went flying for the doors, too.

So I turned around and almost bumped into that damned Danny kid—and he did have a gun. Pointed right at me.

A couple of guys and teachers eased toward him but he spun around looking all wild and they moved back. And then he took his version of that gunman’s stance you see in movies and on TV and aimed the gun at me again.

“I told you,” he said.

“Refresh my memory,” I told him. Which really pissed him off, of course.

And I heard LeeAnn yell, “Colton!” like she was afraid I was going to get my smart mouth shot full of lead. Taylor ran up into the little crowd of people standing behind him—I glanced at her as if to remind her what happened the last time she did that, but she didn’t budge. Her eyes were totally glued on me—she was breathing real fast, too. I was afraid she was having some kind of break down.

But then Caldwell shoved through the little group and went, “Danny, freeze!”

Which was stupid since Danny wasn’t moving anyway.

So then he tried, “You remember what the cops told you last time, don’t you? Don’t do anything stupid.”

But he’d gone way past stupid already, right? Two for two. What a tool.

And of course, Danny didn’t answer him. He didn’t even hear him. He was fixated on me. I mean, he had this Charlie Manson eyes thing going on that I wish I could’ve taken a picture of--half a bubble off plumb, this Danny kid.

And next he started walking up on me real slow, with this stupid smirky smile on his face.

“Bet this is the last thing you thought would happen today, huh, Cutie Pie?” he said.

“Daniel, you are making a very bad choice, son,” some counselor called. I knew it was a counselor because only a counselor could come up with something even sillier than what Caldwell had said at a time like that.

And of course, Danny didn’t hear her either. He was walking and smiling…and then his face changed because I was walking and smiling, too. Toward him.

And when I was almost up against the barrel of the gun I brought my fist up as hard as I could under the handle. And as the gun popped up out of his fist, I grabbed it out of the air and turned it toward him.

“Colton, don’t!” LeeAnn screamed. Literally screamed. Like, the girliest scream she had probably ever let fly in her life—that scared me ‘way more than Danny had.

But I turned it the way you’re supposed to before you hand it off and Delores, Caldwell and this woman in one of those polo shirts and a denim skirt ran up and got it off me while almost all the people who’d been standing there leapt on top of Danny—poor guy.

Taylor rushed up to me trembling like a leaf on a tree.

“Don’t you ever do anything like that ever again!” she said. Possibly the silliest of all the things that’d been said in the last few minutes, but she was so shaky and sincere that it sort of touched my heart, actually. She sounded like your mother would if she’d been standing there holding her breath through an ordeal like that. I almost wanted to hug her.

But I just said, “It’s not even real. Lookit the barrel—Airsoft knock off. Pro’bly from the Swap Meet or something.”

Caldwell did what I said—the principal took a really good look at it, too before this cop came trotting over.

“He tried to hide the orange tip with, like, paint or electrical tape or something,” I told them. “But I could totally see it.”

LeeAnn exhaled like she’d been holding her breath the whole time—except that she’d screamed like that, so I knew better.

“Well, nobody knew that but you!” she said.

“Yeah, but I mean, then the damned fool starts walking right up to me tryin’a stick it all in my face—how could I not see it?”

“How the hell did he get loose?!” Delores demanded. Drawing a bead on the two admins standing there with us.

“He squeezed out of a window over there in Discipline,” some kid said. The kids were running back in again. Some were acting the whole thing out. Others were showing each other their videos of it and talking to people on their phones about it.

And Lakesha came stomping over all pissed and said, “These people need to hire your crazy ass, son.”

That made me laugh. But Taylor just standing there watching me. Hugging herself and watching me, like I guess she’d already seen me dead on the floor or something.

“I need to go over’n’ get that stack of stuff you got together for me,” I said, hoping that would snap her out of it.

“And I need a shot o’ Jack behind that—c’mon get this child’s stuff so we can get outta here, Miss Lady,” Delores said.

And then she looked at me and said, “I’m scared o’ you…”

The dj came over with this look like he didn’t know what to do. Seeing that the principal and Caldwell were in a huddle with security and two cops by then, Delores said, “You better git over there’n’ get this party started before these children string you up from one o’ them hoops out there!”

I was so relieved—I was afraid it would be over for them. Their last hurrah.

It was over for me, though. The polo shirt woman came over looking all serious. She was Principal Teri Price according to her shirt. And she reminded me of a slightly more feminine LeeAnn--made an interesting match with Caldwell, too. They both had that jockish vibe goin’ on.

She said, “Well, you’ve lived up to the stories I’ve been hearing all day,” with a little bit of a twinkle in her makeup-less eyes. She had this weird Little Dutch Boy hairdo that fascinated me.

“God, I hope not,” I said.

“Oh, they were good ones—”

“Oh, shit, here come Danny’s mother!” Lakesha cried. “That fool done called in the troops!”

When I looked up, I saw this big woman—and I mean really big woman—going all WWF on a security dude. She must’ve weighed about 400 pounds and some. And it was all squeezed into this bandeau topped, leopard skin print dress that fit her like a sausage casing and wasn’t nearly able to handle all that boobage. And her hair was all teased out like I think she was trying to be dressed up sort of, maybe because she knew there was a dance, I don’t know. But the effect was like she’d just stuck her finger in a light socket and left her hair sticking up—she had this Einstein thing goin’ on. And the 80s bangs standing straight up in front only added to the fright wig effect.

You probably guessed that the kids were laughing their asses off. But I felt kind of sorry for her. I mean, she took me back to my trailer trash days—oh, yeah. Sixth generation trailer trash, me. Serious “Uncle Daddy/Auntie Mommy” family. Whenever we watch Cops, I expect to see one of my snaggletoothed brother cousins bookin’ it down an alley somewhere. And my mother, who I’ve mentioned before, was the poster child for inbreeding—pretty woman, Gracie. Beautiful woman, actually. Looked like a hot little surfer blond. Men were on her like white on rice—I can’t remember how many times I had to put a hurt on some fool for getting too handsy with her or something. But she would have been on that short bus for sure if her fucking family had even bothered to put her in school.

So I recognized Danny’s mother. She was one of my people. Kind of white people other white people wish would just go back up in some hillbilly holler and stay there. And this one made me ashamed and concerned at the same time, because whatever she’d come to do wasn’t going to end well. We’re also hard luck people. And she was goin’ down like Custer that day—I could feel it even though it took a whole swarm of cops to haul her wobbling mass of flesh out of the gym.

“He prob’ly calt Cody, too,” Lakesha said. “You best ride on off into the sunset, son.”

“And Cody is?”

“Crazy,” this one little Mexican girl told me.

“Whole family crazy,” a second Black girl said. “Be out there starin’ people down and shit—she drive Danny to school every day cause she swear alla black and Mexican kids be pickin’ on his skinny ass.”

“Boy come in here the first day talkin’ shit,” Lakesha told me. “He got that Assberger or whatever you call it—counselors came’n’ gave us trainin’ before they put him in class. But he’s workin’ that last nerve now.”

“Called that boy from India a camel jockey,” another Mexican girl said. “And when we told him he wun even a Arab he goes, ‘What’s the goddamned difference?! They’re all a buncha terrorists!’”

“Cody used to call all the Indians prairie niggers,” Lakesha said.

“Him again,” I asked again.

“He the craziest one. Danny always callin’ him when he get into it wit somebody,” the first little Mexican girl told me. “And then he sneak in the building some kinda way’n’ be waitin’ on whoever it was.”

I didn’t get a chance to investigate that further because the DJ put on that Fergie thing from Gatsby-- A Little Party Never Hurt Nobody – and the whole place went ape shit again, like they’d never seen Big Mama get dragged away. Or me get threatened with a gun.

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