Brig Huezo

Through all of my school years, October was the month that I awaited with the most excitement. When I was still in elementary school, it was Children’s Day that I looked forward to, but soon Halloween became my favourite day of the year. The day that the teachers would barricade the school to keep out the light. They would close every door and window and in front of the glass they would put black cardboard to stop every last ray of sunlight. We would help them, even taping black garbage bags to the glass. By midday, the building would be sealed. The air would get stuffy and, soon enough, humid from sweat. The head teacher put a CD into a stereo that usually played listening comprehension exercises. Now it began hammering reggaeton beats. It was the year I would turn 13. I had already been to two of those parties. It should have been three but I had been sick the previous year. Lying in bed with a plastic bowl next to me, I had imagined the darkened school and the shadows moving within it. A building from a parallel world. This year, I wanted to make up for missing the last dance. I was changing at a painful speed during this time, body parts grew like tumors and I understood too much, too quickly. I was keenly aware that I would die and needed to start making experiences that, so I hoped, would one day amount to a sort of wisdom. I did not care if those experiences were pleasant. And at first, this school dance was not: A dark room full of students and teachers, timidly pressed against the walls. The loud music did not fill the empty space. I could not see the faces of the other students and, for a second, all those figures lurking in the dark scared me. The girl standing right next to me had her gaze fixed on the wall across from us, breathing rapidly. I wondered if she saw something that I could not. Then, the first pair dared to dance. As every year, they were the object of our collective judgement and laughter, but soon enough, more students filled the dance floor. The teachers stayed among themselves, we knew that they were discussing the morality of the ways their students were grinding on each other. The most powerful in the room were the girls who could move their hips well. Ass rubbing up and down on a boy’s crotch, they asserted their authority. Those girls, only my age or a little older, seemed to be comfortable in their sexuality. A sexuality that included having heavy curves, long hair and nails and a desire strictly limited to athletic young men. Even though all of this was foreign to me, perreo’s scandalous sensuality fascinated me. I vaguely felt that I had to find my very own way of dancing it. After I had hastily moved away from a boy approaching me, I was one of the few pupils dancing alone. I felt uneasy, I had expected to see more of the kids I knew. Somebody had snuck in a bottle of red wine, whenever I was close enough to others to see their faces, their lips were tinted. The air must have smelled of puberty, of all the sensations that are still overwhelming at this age. But all I could smell that night was a metallic scent that made me wonder if some students were on their periods. My attention kept being drawn to one of the couples dancing. A girl I had not seen before was grinding on one of the boys from the class next to mine. Her movements, though rapid, seemed strangely still to me. Usually, if somebody wanted to dance like this, they would pull away into the darker corners, but she and this boy were doing it right there on the floor. He looked nervous but proud, her face was expressionless, eyes like two dark tunnels. She was young, maybe younger than me. I realized I was part of an uneven circle that had formed around them. My hips were moving differently than before, it felt as if my whole body was a compass and they were north. Then she pressed her full back against him, hips still circling, and tilted her head towards his neck. I became sharply aware that I was staring and tore my gaze away, to the others. I knew that I seemed odd to other kids, that it made me an easy target, so I was used to being looked at. Now, for the first time their glances became unbearable. They all had their faces turned towards me, pale and without speaking. A hot flood of shame washed over me. I turned around and ran towards the nearest exit, but the doors were locked. I made a left to the toilets, running past students dancing perreo, but something was off. It didn’t fully register then, but looking back, I think I did not see a single smile. Everyone just seemed to be sleepwalking. Someone with a cold hand tried to grab my arm, I pulled it away and shivered. Only one of the stalls, the one where I would sometimes hide during lunch breaks, had a window. I ran straight into the cabin, locked the door behind me and jumped on the toilet seat. As I opened the window, I heard scratching and a hiss outside the cabin. I pulled myself up to the window, my heart racing so fast I could hardly breathe. Making my way out, I scratched my arms and legs, long, bloody streaks with little flakes of skin that I only discovered once the adrenaline had worn off. By the following January, I had almost forgotten about my rushed exit. By July, I began looking forward to the dance again. In October, I was quivering with excitement, because over the months, I had been nourishing a secret desire: I, too, wanted to dance with that girl.