Part I – The Limo of Doom
“Let me get one more picture, GeekMan. You look so handsome I could cry!”
“Moooom!”
I rolled my eyes while my mother made cooing noises and lined up the Polaroid like a shotgun at my acne covered face. We were standing outside our Brooklyn apartment building waiting for my rented limo to arrive and whisk me away to my High School Prom. I was dressed to the nines in a rather threadbare, black, rented tuxedo that smelled of mothballs and cheap detergent, and my $30 second-hand shoes had been shined to mirror brightness by a combination of a black magic marker, an old washcloth and generous amounts of spit. My brand new contact lenses were causing me to blink furiously and my eyes were watering at an almost biblical rate as I stared intently down the street and willed the limo to appear like magic and save me from yet another silly photograph. Catching a glimpse of myself on the window of a parked car, I cocked my head to the side and smirked at my reflection in my best Michael Knight impersonation.
“Damn,” I thought as I straightened my bowtie. “Eat your heart out James Bond!”
I patted my Dipity-Doo and Aqua-Net styled hair back into its limp and very un-cool pompadour and tried to smile for the camera. As soon as the little black box had vomited forth yet another iron-clad example of why I should never be allowed to breed, I again asked my mother for the time.
“Mom, where do you think the limousine is?”
“Don’t worry Geek, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. He’s a professional.”
“I know mom, but maybe we should call…”
“Stop fretting and let me take another picture of my darling boy.”
“Mooooom!”
The limousine was already almost an hour late. Being the one responsible for the limo, my friends had decided that I was to be the first person picked up. Of course, that made it my responsibility to make sure everyone was picked up on time so we could head off to our fancy dinner and the Prom. Even though not one of my friends had a real date for the evening, we were all prepared to enjoy ourselves to the max.
We were going to have fun Porky’s style.
Although I was all of seventeen, I was a real city boy so I didn’t own a car and hence had no idea how to actually drive to any of my friends’ houses. Because of this, I was hopeless at giving directions unless it was by foot or train. All I did know was my friends’ addresses (written down on a piece of paper for the limo driver) and their general locations on a map. I was positive that that was all I’d need to give the driver for him to find my friends.
It worked for taxis, so why not limo’s?
My friends lived all over the five boroughs so it had been calculated that we’d need about three hours to pick up everyone and make it to the restaurant in time for dinner. One of my friends lived close to me in Brooklyn, three lived in the wilds of Queens, one lived in the unknown and dangerous seeming Bronx and one would meet us outside the restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.
BTW, Staten Island doesn’t really count as a borough because… well, it’s Staten Island.
We had reservations for dinner at a fancy restaurant called Top of the Sixes at eight o’clock and it was already six. I was beginning to get worried, especially since I had gotten this limo based on a ‘friend of the family’ type connection and my friends were counting on me to pick them up and get them to the Prom on time. We had all decided to go to this shindig only two weeks before and finding a limo was very hard to do at the last minute during Prom season.
I didn’t want to let my friends down.
Just as I was about ready to explode into a fiery ball of anxiety, the limo turned the corner and I felt myself relax. I think I might have visibly shuddered as the pent up frustration in my body was expelled in one massive sigh of relief. My muscles relaxed to the point that I needed to hold on to something just to keep from falling down.
It was like a full body orgasm without the mess.
As the long, black limo pulled up to my apartment building, I smiled and waved farewell to my mother and walked out to the street. The limo driver was a young man, barely in his twenties and he immediately popped out from the drivers seat and opened the passenger door for me. As I got in he gave me the first warning of the horror that my night would turn out to be.
“Sorry I’m late, but I got lost.”
Unfortunately, my danger-sense was as yet undeveloped and I failed to comprehend this early warning of impending doom. I shrugged and let it slide figuring that anyone could get lost, even a New York limo driver. He shut the door smartly and hopped back into the front seat. With one final look at my mother standing in the doorway we were off.
Cue horror music.
As I sat there in the limo I became enamored with its sleek and sexy interior. It had big, wide leather seats that could easily accommodate all seven of us, little lights for reading, neon lights running around all the windows and a deep, black carpet. It also had a separate tape deck for the passengers, a mini bar and, oh my god, an actual car phone!
I felt like a rock star.
As we stopped at the light at the end of my block, the divider glass that separated the driver from the passenger lowered itself. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Alas, it would turn out to be the best thing about the entire evening.
“Where to, sir?”
Wow. He called me ‘Sir’.
“I have a list of addresses for my friends here. They’re listed in the order that they need to be picked up and we need to hurry because we have a dinner engagement at Top of the Sixes at eight.”
I handed him the list and sat back in the seat nearly bursting with pride because I’d managed to use the word ‘engagement’ in a real sentence. I amused myself for a while by daydreaming about using other grownup and important sounding words in sentences later on in life. Words like ‘loquacious’, ‘fastidious’ and ‘avocado’. Five minutes later we were on the Belt Parkway headed for NYC.
A small man with a large trumpet began playing ‘Revelry’ somewhere in the vicinity of my left temple. I hastily leaned forward and knocked on the privacy partition.
“Excuse me, driver?”
“Yes sir?”
“Shouldn’t we be picking up my friends?”
“Sir?”
“My friends. The people I’m going to the Prom with?
“I’m taking you to meet them at the restaurant now, Sir.”
The little man played louder.
“No. Nononono. You don’t understand. We need to pick up my friends first, ok?”
“Your friends, Sir?”
“You know, my friends? I gave you a list of their addresses a little while ago? We’re supposed to be picking them up so we can all go to dinner and then to our Prom?”
“Oooohhhh! I’m sorry sir, I didn’t realize you wanted to pick them up first. Although, to tell you the truth, I thought it was a little strange for you to be going to dinner all alone in a limo.”
The little man on the trumpet was joined by a choir singing ‘You’re Screwed’.
“OK. Well, we need to pick up my friends, starting with the one on the top. She lives only a few minutes from my house so all we need to do is go back to that area and get her and then we’re back on schedule, right?”
“Sure sir.”
“Great.”
The choir and trumpeter paused for dramatic effect as the marching band filed onstage and waited for their cue.
“Uh, Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know how to get there from here? I seem to be lost.”
The marching band burst into an ancient Scottish polka on their out-of-tune bagpipes. They were accompanied by the sounds of the veins in my forehead bursting like cannon-fire as I suddenly developed a twitch in my left eye.
“You’re lost?”
“I’m afraid so, Sir.”
“You don’t know where you are?”
“No Sir.”
“You. Are. Lost.”
“Yes Sir.”
“OK. Fine. No problem. I can handle this. I’m cool, I’m calm and I’m collected. There’s no need to panic. My friends won’t kill me, right? They’ll understand it wasn’t my fault, right? Right?”
“Sir?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Alright. I’ve got it. This limo has a car phone, right?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Great. Then I suggest you call your office and get directions.”
“Excellent idea, Sir.”
He looked directly at me from the front seat and slowly, ever so slowly, blinked. Neither of us moved to pick up the phone.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Would you happen to have the number to my office on you? I forgot to bring it with me.”
Oh. My. God.
*** Next time, the Prom Dinner Fiasco ***
