The Art Of Discretion

I didn’t know why but I was burning with anger as we left the taxi. The condescending tone with which the man had addressed us had only heightened it. The way the bright blue of his irises had traced the soft curves of Jay’s body left me cold. She seemingly oblivious, grinned idiotically by my side. I followed her line of sight and gasped, a mass of teens swayed in lines in time to the lyrics belted out by a girl near the front of the queue.
The light was soft and the queue seemed illuminated in their hopes of a perfect evening. We joined the queue as the girl launched into a belated verse of ‘this isn’t a fashion statement’. Gazing around me I spotted all the usual suspects. Jay and I had built up a list over the years of attending MCR concerts of ‘most likely’ in the queues

‘Hey queues are boring places to be’

Scanning around us now I spotted ‘Emo Nerds’ and ‘Goths’.
It always amused us how so many could find money to attend gig after gig of their favourite band but yet still couldn’t afford a quid to splash out on a bar of soap.
Faded panic! At the disco t shirts shuffled forward, their occupants hidden either by a lank mop of dark greasy hair, or a brightly fashioned ‘Emo’ fringe.

We must have looked an odd pair, Jay and I, her in her crisp military jacket and tight skinny jeans, unmade face and sandy blonde hair making her seem less aged amongst the dishevelled fans beside us, My skirt and tight black top, oh god I must have looked like some sort of prostitute, a Brighton whore.
‘Just wonderful’.

As these rather worrying thoughts occurred to me I heard a scream from near the front of the crowd. I glanced at Jay to see her transfixed by the goings on, the young girl who had previously had been singing was being carried by two large dark haired men in bright jackets. The audience dispersed as they pushed through and I suddenly found myself away from Jay.

A tall dark haired boy stared intently at me. As I found myself staring back I realised how different he appeared from the rest of them. Not that I make it a habit of gaining love interests from concerts mainly attended by men with horrific excuses for facial hair, but his icy blue eyes seemed to touch somewhere beneath my skin. I felt my face turn a fetching shade of crimson underneath my concealer and I could have sworn a slight smile played upon his lips as he turned from me.

I felt strangely elated as the crowd gave another sudden lurch and I saw a very bemused Jay grinning once again idiotically at me. Turning my head I saw why, the entire arena was lit with smiling faces and suddenly my sourness didn’t matter. We were in the same breathing space as Gerard, Frank, Mikey, Ray and Bob, granted we were also sharing that space with 1000 other excited adolescents, but none the less, we were here. As the atmosphere built up, everyone stood and stared in awe. I took a deep breath and squeezed Jay’s hand.