The VFW Dance

from More Fun Than Bowling

by Steven Dietz

Lois recalls how she once got out of a tight situation.

LOIS:   About ten years ago, we went to a dance at the V.F.W. Hall on the Fourth of July.  All the guys came dressed as their favorite president.  About half came as Washington,  half as Lincoln.  VoTech's not long in the history department. My date came as F.D.R. so he wouldn't have to dance.

(pause) We sat for two hours in the corner, eating mints.  Then he asked if I'd ever seen a "real....smooth....pickup."  And I said maybe not, and he lifted me up over his head and took me out to the parking lot.  “That was pretty smooth,” I said and he said "That wasn't it...  This is it."  He pointed to his shiny silver Ford pickup truck with metallic green shell on back.  "Want to get inside and get to know each other?" he said.  Before I knew it, someone had sucked out all my common sense with a straw and I said "Sure" and we sat there smelling the fresh vinyl seat covers.  He didn't say a word.  I turned on the radio.   He turned it off.  He said he had something to show me and he unzipped his pants and reached way down in them and pulled out a very ...small ...key.  "This key opens my gun rack" and sure enough there was his twelve gauge shotgun locked to a rack behind our heads and he took down that gun and began to clean it with his white handkerchief.  He explained every detail of that gun to me during the next hour as he caressed it with that handkerchief.  Then he loaded it.  Then he lifted the edge of my skirt with it and said "Now, what are you gonna show me. 

(Pause) After showing him the entire contents of my purse .. only four minutes had elapsed.  So, I started to unbutton my blouse.  And he started to smile.  Then I stopped.  I said "For the good stuff we need to get in the back." 

"Under the Shell?" he said.  "Yeah," I said.  "I just put new carpeting back there," he said.  "Your choice," I said, and after considering it for a moment...he nodded.  "Take off all your clothes," I said.  "Even my shorts?" he said. "Especially your shorts," I said. 

So there he was, naked in the back of the shell.  And there I was, about to climb in - when I grabbed his clothes, slammed the cover shut, locked him in and drove the pickup to the front door of the V.F.W. Hall.  I walked inside, grabbed the microphone from the stage and yelled "HEY, I GOT A KEG OF BEER IN THE BACK OF MY PICKUP.  EVERYBODY HELP THEMSELVES." 

That metallic shell didn't last long, and wouldn't F.D.R. have been proud how fast that boy ran away naked into the night.