Max, 18, doesn't really know what's happening to him, except he should know that a journey won't look familiar where he's never been.
Dating at 18... a group of friends line-dancing with strangers - nothing personal.
Writer’s note
Every now and then you find yourself in a place like this one: real friendly. It's a room of orange or other warm colors. And somebody says something to you that they never would in a cold or formal place. So you reply. The conversation is easy, plain. This room is an amazing stage for your feelings - the loudspeakers even give you the country soundtrack to help you out.
A boy that never learned the rules of dating in high school still doesn't know what to do in college, especially when he meets a guy from the Air Force. Max steps outside with the Airman, away from the play-it-safe group dating that's going on at the pleasant honky-tonk. Now Max is holding on for all he's worth in a desert land where the rules never come into focus.
Passage at Amazon Hard Footwork
The beginning of the story…
MY FRIENDS get me in the middle of this line dance and all I want is out.
I stagger off, hoping that no one will notice. They carry on with the dance, which they are pretty good at. I'm kind of impressed.
I've never really seen this before but now I'm in a country-and-western part of the country. This is where I came for college, and my friends somehow decided we had to go dancing.
This other guy gets out of line, too. He's not with our group. He's with this other group that has military haircuts, so I'm guessing they came from the Air Force base. We end up on the same side of the room because the dance must have tossed us that way.
"You're no good," he says.
I laugh. "Neither are you."
Most of the tables are empty because a lot of people are on the floor. We sit down at one of them.
"They better leave me out of it," he says.
I go, "They told me I could learn."
We laugh again. He's friendly. The room, too, is really warm. The wood gives it this orangey appearance, like it's your favorite blanket. I like the music a lot. As long as they don't make me dance to it, I'm down with country.
"You from the college?" he says.
"Yeah." Now I can say what I've been thinking. "You from the base?"
He rubs his hand along the side of his head, where it's shaved close. That's the answer.
I can't think of anything to say. The reason we came here, me and my friends, was to have some fun. Most of them are really nice people. I think we came with 10 or 12 of us, guys and girls like half and half.
The military guys are by themselves, so I suppose they came here looking for girls. This guy that I'm with, I figure he can get any girl he wants. He looks the part of the nice young Airman. I don't think he's from around here but like I said before, neither am I.
We are hiding out from our groups so they don't try and get us back out on the floor. The guys from his group are out there. They've done this line dance thing before, I can see. My friend must be new in town.
"You wanna get out of here?" he says.
Like me, I think he wants to make sure they can't find him when they come looking for him to dance.
"Sure," I say.
I'm not thinking too much about it. I do want out. We'll stand outside for a while, then come back in when the coast is clear. Besides, this part of the country has got stars.
The night sky is on fire with them. You trade the yellow warmth of the room, plus that country music, for the black silence you find out here. It's kind of cool.
The space is open. Cars are parked around in the dirt. There isn't that much to it.
The guy goes, "Are you gonna have to drive your girlfriend home or something?"