Dancers below Joey shouted at him as he passed. Some of them congratulated him while others cursed at him. Both responses, and even mostly neutral expressions, usually came couched in acidic obscenities that Joey had seldom encountered. He felt thrilled and embarrassed at the same time.
Vacation Bible school had never been like this. As soon as that thought raced through his mind, Joey felt an immediate surge of guilt and was reminded how the youth minister had always told him the best way to know what God wanted in a person’s life was by paying attention to the small niggling doubts that often turned into guilt if left unchecked. His preacher said that a sense of right and wrong was placed within every person, but it was up to that person to fine-tune that sense and keep his or her covenant with God.
An old anger surfaced in Joey again, triggering the rebellion that had claimed him. No one knew what was right for him. He didn’t even know, but he sure wasn’t going to let someone else tell him. He’d loved his dad, but Tony Holder had left and seldom showed up these days. Joey had liked the youth minister, Mr. Lewis, but Mr. Lewis had moved away.
Joey had deeply liked, admired, and respected Goose, especially in the early days of Goose’s marriage to his mom. Those times had been great. Then, in no time at all it seemed, The Squirt had been born. Chris’s arrival into the family had changed everything for Joey. Goose’s attention had been divided between the boys, and he wasn’t able to do as many guy things with Joey as he had before Chris had been born. The pickup basketball games and racquetball games Joey had loved stopped as Goose stayed home more to take care of Chris.
Part of that time spent together before Chris arrived, Joey knew, was because his mom worked long hours in the counseling center helping other people’s kids. That hadn’t been a problem before Chris had been born. Then, Goose had told them they were going to “bach” it, and they’d go take in a movie and grab dinner at a café off base. If they didn’t do a movie, they’d go to the rec center, shoot some hoops, or play racquetball till they were both too tired to stand.
Chris had spoiled all of that. Goose hadn’t been able to go as much when Joey’s mom wasn’t home to take care of the baby. And it was like Goose never even noticed how much things had changed. It was then that Joey realized that he was, and always would be, Goose’s stepson, not his real son. When he was feeling generous, which wasn’t often these days, Joey supposed that it wasn’t Goose’s fault. After all, Goose couldn’t have known how he would feel about having a real son until he had one.
But Joey felt lied to and taken advantage of. Like he’d been replaced. He pushed away those thoughts and concentrated on the moment. The music was loud, the lights were dizzying, and the crowd was wild. And he was in the middle of it.
The crowd shoved him toward the stage. Tossed and hurled across the surface of the crowd, Joey craned his neck around and spotted Jenny ten feet ahead of him and quickly approaching the stage. Most of the hands shoved him forward, but he caught more than a few punches to his back, ribs, and thighs. Anger ran rampant through much of the crowd. The hard music gave their rage a voice, and the various chemical stimulants they were imbibing gave people free reign to act on the primeval violence that moved within them. After this night, Joey was certain he’d be carrying bruises for a week.
Jenny reached the stage easily. She was a girl. Girls always reached the stage. But she was met by two burly security guards wearing band T-shirts with SECURITY stamped across the chest and back of the shirts. They wore black paratrooper pants, but none of the guys looked like the military government-issue guys that Joey had been around.
As Joey closed on the stage, the two security guards confronted Jenny. Usually, the security people pushed the crowd surfers back from the stage, and the dancers swept them back to the other end of the dance floor. But this time the lead guitarist—a guy with a tattooed face, skinny arms, and obscene T-shirt—stepped forward and spoke to the security people.
The guitarist started on a throbbing, ear-splitting solo and spoke to Jenny. Unbelievably, Jenny started dancing onstage, gyrating her body in a manner that filled Joey with lust and jealousy all at the same time. If she had danced for him like that—alone—he would have been thrilled. But dancing in front of guys who hooted and yelled and screamed encouragement was horrible. He also felt it was incredibly stupid.
Joey reached the stage. Anger burst loose inside of him. He tried to run across the stage and get to Jenny. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he reached her, but he was determined to reach her.
Two security guards caught him before he took his third step. With embarrassing ease, the security guys flung Joey back into the crowd. Once he landed atop the crowd, the dancers shouted in eager derision at his failed attempt and started shoving him to the back of the dance floor.
“No!” Joey yelled, wanting to get to Jenny and get her off the stage or at least let everyone know she was with him. But the crowd wasn’t listening or couldn’t hear him. He fought and twisted and grabbed on to people. In the end, his efforts didn’t matter. He was swept along the top of the crowd like a piece of flotsam driven before an aggressive tide.
