For Ned

She wore a shiny, plastic, hip-hugger mini-skirt with a thick belt, white vinyl ankle-high go-go boots, and a mohair sweater that made her nose itch. She and her best friend stood in front of the mirror applying and reapplying too much, tan pancake makeup with a dampened French sponge followed by multiple layers of Maybelline black mascara. The makeup was a crazy mix of high-end professional stage products and the cheap drugstore variety used by 12 and 13 year olds. Her friends mother was an actress currently starring in an off-Broadway show, so the girls liked to raid her makeup whenever they could.Tonight the owner of the makeup was somewhere in the city, performing in a show, so the friends had free rein over all the expensive pastes and creams. They were excited to be going to a high school dance. Boys would be there.

Saint Luke's Episcopal Church held dances for the town's young teens. Boys and girls got dropped off by mothers and fathers in Chevy Impalas, Ford station wagons, and the occasional Mercedes sedan. Montclair had its share of wealth, being a sophisticated New York City suburb. It was also known for being integrated, although  the high school lunchroom remained largely segregated into tables of black kids, Italian kids, jocks and circle-pin wearing blondes all sorted according to their respective racial  and socioeconomic attributes. It wasn't until later on that those walls of separation began to flake, then crack, and finally explode.

It was October 17, 1966. The sky was dark when the girls got dropped off in front of the church. It was windy and the tree lined streets cast crazy shadows across the sidewalk and against the sides of the coarse stone block walls of the church giving this night a crazy carnival feel. It did feel exciting like a carnival. The girls might as well of been sneaking into a gypsy’s tent  ignorant of what awaited them. One of them was about to collide with her future face to face, in her 13 year old pancake tan and gloppy black mascara. Her unknown fortune only being seen by the ghost-gypsy hovering in the corner of the ceiling, a milky wavy wisp of smokey future that the excited boys and girls would never think to look up and notice. But there she floated, watching the young bodies sway and bob to Marvin Gay and Mustang Sally. These young souls were shy and bold, brave, reckless and wild, with no thought at all of how their young ears would ring from the pounding sub-woofers in the morning. The gypsy ghost couldn't hold back a toothless crooked grin when the handsome skinny boy asked the taller girl wearing the plastic skirt to dance as the Four Tops sang "I'm Losing You"

“I can feel your love fading
I know it's fading…  oooooowwwwwwhhhhhhoooooo
I'm losing you.
Losing you”

His smile was a mile wide. He had those laughing eyes, crinkled on the edges. He could dance too. She wanted to escape and searched the darkened room for her friend as Martha and the Vandellas began Dancin' In The Street.

"Oh, this is a great one," he insisted as he grabbed her arm. His charm was a magnetic force pulling her into the rhythmic wave of attraction.

“There'll be music, sweet music, there'll be music everywhere.
There'll be swing and swaying and records playing and dancing in the streets.
Ooohhhh It doesn't matter what you wear just as long as you are there.
So come on every guy, grab a girl, everywhere around the world.
There'll be dancing, dancing in the street.”

The ghost gypsy pursed together her lips and blew out hormone vapor which swirled around filling up the empty spaces between the dancing boys and girls. The taller girl and skinny boy slowly, gradually inched closer and closer, one great song melting into the next. It felt like a tribe was forming. It felt like the roses were about to bloom. It smelled like thunder and lightening . The gypsy was so pleased with how it all was preceding.  But then the music stopped and the gypsy began to dissipate, even as she struggled to remain, shrinking to try to keep herself intact. 

"Hey, what's your name? Asked the skinny boy.

"Linda," the tall girl lied. The gypsy frowned, her face scrunched up into disbelief, then  erupted into anger. 

"That's not your name" the gypsy tried to scream over the laughing, jostling boys and girls, but it was too late. She was nothing more than specks of lint fluttering around a lightbulb beam. The taller girl ran off with her friend to the waiting Chevy Impala outside, as the skinny boy walked the shadowy suburban streets back to his house whistling  to the Spencer Davis Trio song that was echoing in his head

"I'm a man. Yes I am
and I can't help but love her so..."