By Penn Collins

Ahhh, prom, 1975.  Despite my pleas, the powers that be have not granted me the proverbial “do-over” that night.  In Central Texas, there are quite few occasions to dress up beyond jeans, boots, and button up shirts, so we were divided into two camps – those wearing ill-fitted borrowed/rented tuxes and those wearing ill-fitted clothes from our own wardrobes.  I fell in the former camp, so I was feeling pretty good about things.  Initially, anyway.

As the night went on, we started drinking from purses and flasks.  This was nothing new to us, being in a sleepy Texas town, but I guess with the bar raised for prom, we all tied one on a little harder than we typically did.  Anyway, I remember necking with my date, Danielle, while listening to The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See?”  All was right with the world.

Here’s where I should probably mention the guys that didn’t make it to that party.  A handful of kids in my high school class had lied about their ages to enlist in the Army during the Vietnam War, so everyone was walking on eggshells, even as the war wound down, hoping for a  safe return.  It wasn’t always so.  In fact, that night, we knew as a police deputy opened the gym doors and solemnly walked towards the stage, that something had happened in Far East Asia.

As the cop took the stage, my date clung to me like grim death.  She had lost her brother Reggie three years before.  Her brother Richie (I’m not joking, Richie and Reggie) was still over there and wasn’t supposed to get back for about 5 months.  It was like we knew in the back of our minds what the officer was going to say, despite every effort to wish it away.

Danielle quivered slightly as I collapsed into her arms and squeezed her.  I think the reason that I squeezed so hard was so I wouldn’t have to see her reaction.  I held and held.  Between sobs, I whispered I was so sorry for her loss, and that I needed her to be strong.  She looked at me strangely.  It turns out that I had thought that the entire bag of my mushrooms was my serving, so I had created a whole alternate backstory for my date Danielle, who was actually an only child in a stable intact family.  She was also on the other side off the gym.  And had been since just before that Marshall Tucker Song.  I had been kissing and sobbing on Frank, a district official who had been brought on only a few months to ensure the school’s smooth transition to the metric system.

I never saw Danielle again.  Or anyone for that matter.  I was so embarrassed that I kept drinking that night until I went permanently blind from alcohol poisoning.  Frank took care of me for a short while, but ultimately, it was too much.  After a few months, he moved to Louisiana.  He still sends me Braille cards every Easter.

Penn Collins is 29 years old and has his sight.