Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

The After-Prom

It was an uphill battle all the way, but Evelyn and Frank Hamilton had finally given in on this one. For Brad. The kids wanted to have a prom party at the house, and the Hamiltons agreed to stay in their upstairs bedroom.

Brad had thought ahead to spike the pool with Wisk, and by the time kids started arriving at one o’clock, the whole pool was one big steaming bubble bath. It turned out to be one of the hottest after-prom parties. Everyone was there. Even Lisa was there, with her new boyfriend, David Leach.

There were some—the shy ones—who stayed in the kitchen. I’m watching the pizza. I don’t want to go swimming. But most went for it on prom night. They stripped out of their carefully chosen gowns and Regis Sevilles and Regencies. Even Shasta took off his exalted Mist-Blue Newport II. Everyone put on bathing suits and dove in.

Graduation time brought in nameless faces from all over. Jerome Barrett, Linda’s brain brother, arrived from USC, chain-smoking joints. Then there was Gloria, Linda’s best girlfriend from grade school. She’d come in from Chicago for a few days. And there were the usual types whom you only saw at parties.

Mike Damone and Mark Ratner were also at Brad’s afterprom party. They hadn’t been speaking since last April, but tonight . . . hell.

“Hey, Rat,” said Mike. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I know I shouldn’t have done that to a buddy. I’m really sorry.”

“I understand,” said The Rat. “You can’t help it. You’re just lewd, crude, rude, and obnoxious.”

They laughed, shook hands.

Eventually the twenty kids crammed into the Hamilton Jacuzzi. Then Brad, who had finally convinced his date to shed down to her bikini, reached into a bush and withdrew two bottles of rum from Mesa De Oro Liquor.

“ALLRIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”

The first bottle was passed around the Jacuzzi, and before long the glow of teenage drunkenness—however faked or real—came over the cramped little Jacuzzi party.

Damone felt something. Someone had grabbed his dick! He scanned the faces in the Jacuzzi. It wasn’t Stacy! Not only wouldn’t she do that to Damone, not again, but she was in the kitchen watching the pizza.

Who was it?

“I’m going under,” said Damone. He feigned a drowning man. “I’m dying . . . blub.”

He slipped underwater, a daring move in the overcrowded Jacuzzi, but he was looking for clues underneath the bubbly water. Who had grabbed his dick? No clues.

He popped back up again. “I’m alive!”

Someone grabbed his dick again.

Later everyone retired to the living room for coffee and making out to a soundless TV. Before long, Brad had passed out by the stairs, rum victim number one.

Damone had gone out by the pool to look at the night sky.

“Hi, Mike.”

He turned around. It was Brad’s date, Jody. She was still wet, hugging herself to keep from shivering.

“How are you?”

“Pretty good,” said Jody. “Brad passed out by the stairs.”

“I know.”

She stood next to him, breathing softly and saying nothing in the way girls do, Damone knew, when they wanted you to kiss them. It was Jody! It had to be Jody he felt underwater!

He thought. She was great looking. Should he go for it? He sure wanted to.

“I’m going to go inside,” said Damone. “And check on the pizza.”

Later, the few that were still awake went to nearby Mt. Palmer to watch the sun rise. It never rose on that foggy morning, and nobody seemed to mind.

“You wait till our prom,” Mike Damone told The Rat. “We’ll have an even better time.”

“Yeah. That was pretty nice of Brad to throw a party. He’s probably going to have to clean it up himself.”

“When he wakes up.”

“Hey,” said The Rat. “Let’s go to 7-Eleven and get some coffee.”

“Great idea,” said Damone. “Let’s take the Prickmobile.”

Damone and The Rat rolled down the hill in Damone’s scratch-marked car. It was that magical hour when the mist was still out and the sky was turning deep blue.