The Plastic Age Percy Marks (read full novel txt) 📖

comedy was a complete success, although the music, written by an undergraduate, was strangely reminiscent of several recent Broadway song successes, and the plot of the comedy got lost after the first ten minutes and was never recovered until the last two. It was amusing to watch men try to act like women, and two of the “ladies” of the chorus were patently drunk. Cleopatra, the leading lady, was a wrestler and looked it, his biceps swelling magnificently every time he raised his arms to embrace the comic Antony. It was glorious nonsense badly enough done to be really funny. Hugh and Cynthia, along with the rest of the audience, laughed joyously⁠—and held hands.

After the play was over, they returned to the Nu Delta house and danced until two in the morning. During one dance Cynthia whispered to him, “Hugh, get me a drink or I’ll pass out.”

Hugh, forgetting his indignation of the year before, went in search of Vinton and deprived that young man of a pint of gin without a scruple. He and Cynthia then sneaked behind the house and did away with the liquor. Other couples were drinking, all of them surreptitiously, Leonard Gates having laid down the law in no uncertain manner, and all of the brothers were a little afraid of Gates.

Cynthia slept until noon the next day, and Hugh went to his classes. In the afternoon they attended a baseball game, and then returned to the fraternity house for another tea-dance. The Prom was to be that night. Hugh assured Cynthia that it was going to be a “wet party,” and that Vinton had sold him a good supply of Scotch.

The campus was rife with stories: this was the wettest Prom on record, the girls were drinking as much as the men, some of the fraternities had made the sky the limit, the dormitories were being invaded by couples in the small hours of the night, and so on. Hugh heard numerous stories but paid no attention to them. He was supremely happy, and that was all that mattered. True, several men had advised him to bring plenty of liquor along to the Prom if he wanted to have a good time, and he was careful to act on their advice, especially as Cynthia had assured him that she would dance until doomsday if he kept her “well oiled with hooch.”

The gymnasium was gaily decorated for the Prom, the walls hidden with greenery, the rafters twined with the college colors and almost lost behind hundreds of small Japanese lanterns. The fraternity booths were made of fir boughs, and the orchestra platform in the middle of the floor looked like a small forest of saplings.

The girls were beautiful in the soft glow of the lanterns, their arms and shoulders smooth and white; the men were trim and neat in their tuxedos, the dark suits emphasizing the brilliant colors of the girls’ gowns.

It was soon apparent that some of the couples had got at least half “oiled” before the dance began, and before an hour had passed many more couples gave evidence of imbibing more freely than wisely. Occasionally a hysterical laugh burst shrilly above the pounding of the drums and the moaning of the saxophones. A couple would stagger awkwardly against another couple and then continue unevenly on an uncertain way.

The stags seemed to be the worst offenders. Many of them were joyously drunk, dashing dizzily across the floor to find a partner, and once having taken her from a friend, dragging her about, happily unconscious of anything but the girl and the insistent rhythm of the music.

The musicians played as if in a frenzy, the drums pound-pounding a terrible tom-tom, the saxophones moaning and wailing, the violins singing sensuously, shrilly as if in pain, an exquisite searing pain.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. “Stumbling all around, stumbling all around, stumbling all around so funny⁠—” Close-packed the couples moved slowly about the gymnasium, body pressed tight to body, swaying in place⁠—boom, boom, boom, boom⁠—“Stumbling here and there, stumbling everywhere⁠—” Six dowagers, the chaperons, sat in a corner, gossiped, and idly watched the young couples.⁠ ⁠… A man suddenly released his girl and raced clumsily for the door, one hand pressed to his mouth, the other stretched uncertainly in front of him.

Always the drums beating their terrible tom-tom, their primitive, blood-maddening tom-tom.⁠ ⁠… Boom, boom, boom, boom⁠—“I like it just a little bit, just a little bit, quite a little bit.” The music ceased, and some of the couples disentangled themselves; others waited in frank embrace for the orchestra to begin the encore.⁠ ⁠… A boy slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. His partner sought two friends. They helped the boy out of the gymnasium.

The orchestra leader lifted his bow. The stags waited in a broken line, looking for certain girls. The music began, turning a song with comic words into something weirdly sensuous⁠—strange syncopations, uneven, startling drumbeats⁠—a mad tom-tom. The couples pressed close together again, swaying, barely moving in place⁠—boom, boom, boom, boom⁠—“Secondhand hats, secondhand clothes⁠—That’s why they call me secondhand Rose.⁠ ⁠…” The saxophones sang the melody with passionate despair; the violins played tricks with a broken heart; the clarinets rose shrill in pain; the drums beat on⁠—boom, boom, boom, boom.⁠ ⁠… A boy and girl sought a dark corner. He shielded her with his body while she took a drink from a flask. Then he turned his face to the corner and drank. A moment later they were back on the floor, holding each other tight, drunkenly swaying.⁠ ⁠… Finally the last strains, a wall of agony⁠—“Ev-‘ry one knows that I’m just Secondhand Rose⁠—from Second Av-en-ue.”

The couples moved slowly off the floor, the pounding of the drums still in their ears and in their blood; some of them sought the fraternity booths; some of the girls retired to their dressing-room, perhaps to have another drink; many of the men went outside for a smoke and to tip a flask upward. Through the noise, the sex-madness, the half-drunken dancers,