The Politics of Dancing

Let me be frank for a minute, but you can still call me Arin, and I don’t want to forfeit any of the body parts I was born with.

I want to talk about that inevitable thing we all must go through:change. And how much it blows, but is great at the same time.

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Before I came to SIU, for a good time, I would hop in my Dodge Ram Raider and drive from my hometown to a quaint truck stop.

The place was a dive, a hole in the wall, and I loved it to pieces. All the waitresses knew me by name. They always knew I’d get a tuna melt with a Pepsi, even though I’d ask for a menu every time. The owner could always tell when I’d had a bad day, and he’d ask me to “smile” in broken English.

My favorite waitress once dropped a tip of $100 in cash on the floor, and no one noticed. Thank Christ I gave it to her and was on her good side, because rumor had it she shot her abusive husband point blank about a week later and was never seen again.

That truck stop was the center of my universe; it was the peak of my happiness and the place all of my friends called home. The truck stop, with its smoke-stained walls and musty bathrooms, is still nestled off of a northern Interstate. The perverted old man who always stared down our shirts still drinks coffee there, the friendly guy with the butterfly tattoo still comes every night, but without me and without most of my friends.

Since I went away to school and immersed myself in Southern Illinois University culture, which in the beginning basically consisted of heavy drinking and no class, I lost touch with nearly all the people I grew up with. Girls got boyfriends and boys got girlfriends and some even in between. Some of us graduated high school and went on to college, some stayed at gas stations behind the counter, and some moved away just for a change of pace, or maybe to run away from what we thought was a black hole.

We have all since adjusted to our new lives, for good or ill. We all realized that life goes on way after junior college and high school. Though the realization may have been a forced one, it was necessary and in hindsight was probably a blessing in disguise. The drama that was slung between members of the group was insulting and revolting. The fact remains that we had grown up and out of each other.

There are, however, few relationships that have lasted and should, for all intents and purposes, forever. As humans, we can only hope for lasting friendships but are forced to look to the future for new ones, and luckily the future looks brighter every day.

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The group died, and now we have all found something new, but it will never be quite as sweet as those long, sleepless nights spent drowning in black coffee and conversation.

Arin Thompson can be reached at [email protected].