The Spectacular Now

“Nothing lasts,” she says, and there’s a little crack in her voice. “You think it’s going to. You think, ‘Here’s something I can hold on to,’ but it always slips away.”

I’ve actually never been in the gardens after dark, but when you’re with a girl, it’s always best to act like you’re an old hand at everything—not to impress her, but just to make sure she feels safe.

Life is spectacular. Forget the dark things. Take a drink and let time wash them away to wherever time washes things away to.

Good old Bob. For a guy with hair growing out of his ears, he sure seems to be in touch with how women feel.

"Nothing does last. And there`s nothing you can hold on to. Not one thing. But that`s all right. It`s actually good. It`s like old people dying. They have to die so there`s room for babies".

Goodbye, I say, goodbye, as I disappear little by little into the middle of the middle of my own spectacular now.

The night is glorious. I’m overflowing with the thrill of having saved the souls of the boys of the Hawaiian Breeze. Maybe Marcus was wrong. Maybe a single person can save the world. I’ll bet I could. I could save the whole world — for a night.

This idea comes to me that we’re all grass blades on the same lawn. We’ve grown up together, shoulder to shoulder, under the same sun, drinking the same rain. But you know what happens to grass blades — somebody cuts them down just when they reach their prime.

Finally, that part of the prom arrives that I don’t have any use for — crowning the king and queen. We’re all kings and queens to my way of thinking. Why would you want to wreck the togetherness of the situation by holding two people above the rest?

These are my people. We’re all dressed up and celebrating our common bond — youth. That’s what the prom is — St. Patrick’s Day for the young. Only we’re not toasting shamrocks or chasing snakes out of Ireland. We’re toasting the chlorophyll rising in our bodies, catching the energy from the universe. Nobody’s ever been young like we are right at this moment. We’re the Faster-than-the-Speed-of-Light Generation.

“That’s right” he says. “Reverend Sutter Keely, the man who can save everybody’s soul but his own.”

I don’t know. It’s strange the way she feels in my arms. So trusting. Like she’s completely sure I have something important in me that she needs.

She sets her drink down and looks off toward the lonesome salesman. “My dad died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s okay. It was a pretty long time ago.”
“What happened?” Sometimes my tact takes a vacation. Tonight it must’ve gone to Kuwait or somewhere.

In the middle of it, I look down at her face. Her expression is sublime, her eyes closed and her lips moving slightly with the little peeps that squeeze out of her. She looks like a saint at prayer. Suddenly, I feel all the layers that have grown over my own purity stripping away. The faster we go, the more layers burn away, until magic time hits, and there’s nothing left but the original me, as pristine as her body, shining and glorious.

I have to admit, in the past, when I went to stores with Cassidy, about half the time I’d end up waiting in the car. I mean, I don’t understand the female fascination with shopping. For me, I just want to go in, buy what I want, and get out. This isn’t how girls operate at all. It’s like a police investigation with them. No piece of evidence can go without thorough inspection. They might as well pack along a forensics kit.

This is a development I didn’t foresee. I mean, a punch in the ear while performing an act of heroism is bound to draw Cassidy’s attention away from fun with me for at least thirty minutes. Talk about a plan backfiring.

Still it’s not nearly cold enough for the kind of jacket Aimee’s sporting. It’s this huge, down-filled purple monster that makes her look like a giant billiard ball. She might be the only girl I’ve ever met who still hasn’t learned to sacrifice bodily comfort for fashion’s sake. She did paint on the lipstick again, but putting lipstick on a billiard ball still doesn’t give it sex appeal.