The best way to establish a character is with a one-shot in the neighborhood, right?

[MurderWeasel]

((Enter Steven Salazar))

Click, jiggle, the lock wasn't cooperating, and so it was that Steven muttered profanities under his breath, producing a cloud of condensation which expanded and then dissipated into nothing. He liked to imagine it as the evil of his words, exorcised from his body and released to be purified by the frigid air. Rain tumbled around him, harder than normal for this time of year. The sound of the falling water formed a not-quite-rhythm he found almost relaxing, despite the inconvenience represented by the drops.

The lock was older than Steven. As long as he could remember it had been particular, requiring a just-so combination of pressure and movement and timing to coax into submission. Most days it was a thing to laugh about. When friends visited, Steven told them that the lock's choosiness was a security feature. Most days, Steven had not neglected to stow his equipment in a waterproof backpack. Perhaps his current suffering amounted to no more than reaping the wheat of carelessness. He knew well that the weather could turn suddenly, but he had concerned himself more with getting home quickly.

A car splashed past on the street behind him, churning the gutters into turmoil. Steven closed his eyes, tightly at first, releasing pressure until they were merely resting shut, like they would be were he sleeping. He pulled the key smoothly from the lock, then reinserted it and tried again.

Click, jiggle, twist, home. He stepped inside, greeted by the familiar creak of the floorboards in the entry hall. Slipping out of his shoes, Steven shrugged loose his duffle coat, shaking it once to remove the least resilient of the water that clung to its surface, then hanging it on the coat rack to dry completely. After that, he padded through the house, his socks silencing the falls of his feet but not the sporadic squeak of old wood shifted by his weight. He did not bother checking for his parents; they would not be home for at least two hours more. Instead, he headed up the steps, feeling the carpeting squish under his toes, moving towards his room.

At the top of the staircase was a short hall, with three doors coming off of it. The door to the right, the one which led to Steven's room, was open. It was always open unless he was working on something particularly noisy or at an inopportune time. He felt better without barriers between himself and the rest of the house, and his computer provided plenty of noise to drown out any residual background sound when his parents were watching television downstairs.

He moved to his unmade bed and sat, quickly pulling the strap for his camera case over his head. His fingers were trembling slightly from the chill, but he took time only to wipe the remaining droplets of water from them before unzipping the case. Inside were his camera, a microcasette recorder, and a digital voice recorder. Steven preferred microcasettes for recording interviews. They had an air of immutability about them, false though it may have been. Digital recordings were only really necessary when he had some reason to want audio saved to his computer.

Right now, his largest concern was for the condition of his equipment. The case was not waterproof in any real sense of the word. He flicked a drop of water off the top of the camera and turned it on. It came to life with the same flashed logo and cheerful chime as always. A few quick button presses confirmed that everything was in working order, that his pictures were all still there.

Next, the microcasette player. Steven's anxiety was already subsiding, though. The camera had been on top, meaning that of his equipment it was most likely to have suffered damage. He rewound the tape for a moment, then pressed play.

"—very excited for Prom," said the voice of a girl, a junior, who he'd met and interviewed during lunch. "I've got my dress all picked out, and—" Steven stopped the tape. Everything was fine. The digital recorder was in good shape as well.

Worry alleviated, he made his way to his computer, started it powering up, and sat down. As he waited for the laptop to grind its way through its initialization process, he opened the window. The rain had largely abated, but the sound of falling water was still strong. Steven's window opened right next to an old, twisted tree. The tree had always struck Steven as sinister, but in a way that edged towards beauty. Now, droplets fell from its leaves steadily. It could have been crying or salivating heavily.

The fascinating thing about water was its variety. While any individual section of a tree branch or a street lamp might drip in a calculated way, all mathematical precision and predictable timing, the net effect of thousands of drip points created an incomprehensible texture, more complicated and layered than the most polyphonic orchestra could ever hope to be. Perhaps the only music that even neared approximating it that Steven had ever been exposed to was that of the Indonesian Gamelan. The sounds of the falling water added to the organic feel that permeated the tree, tinting the entire room with an odd emotion Steven couldn't quite name.

It was a good thing to muse on before writing.

---

Tuesday, at about one in the afternoon, I was walking through the electives hall, seeking respite from the world of Physics in a quick trip to the commode, when a voice behind me called my name. I pretended that I had heard nothing and continued on my way, but the voice called for me again, accompanied this time by the sound of cheap sneakers slapping across the tile floor. I knew I couldn't escape my pursuer in time, not if I wanted to avoid a jaunt through the entire school which would have precluded returning to class, and so with great resignation I turned and greeted my fate.

"Salazar," said the the junior girl who is my assigned editor and whose name you can surely find elsewhere in this fine publication, "you forgot to sign up for a topic for this issue. You remember your story is due Friday, right?"

"Of course," I lied. The look in her eyes spelled impending doom. There is nothing editors hate more than having to supply missing content on account of delinquent reporters.

"Then what are you covering?" she said. "And aren't you supposed to be in class?"

Back to the wall, I had no choice but to fabricate a likely cover story.

"I write the gossip column," I said. "Therefore I cannot tell in advance what my topic will be. Gossip that is fresh at the start of the week has begun to mold come Friday. Great journalism is not made from plans; it is made from seizing the moment with both hands and clinging to it until it stops trying to buck you off."

I could see that she was not convinced, so I took the plunge, forestalling argument by dooming myself voluntarily.

"However, for my fine and charming editor, I can give a rough idea." I was walking as I spoke, backing up, and she followed along with me. "I am going to cover a majestic and unsung chapter in the history of Aurora High School. I am going to bring our newspaper information on a great and ancient tradition, a dark and secret ritual. It has come to my attention that every year the normally-sane-and-civilized people of this school revert to a crude sort of tribalism. They gather at a location in the city, decked out in ceremonial garb of fine and expensive fabrics. Assembled, they bump and grind against one another to the crashing beat of drums and nonsensical chanting. Often, this forms a key part in the courtship protocols of those our age. At the climax of this bizarre act, two are chosen to step forth, one of each gender. They are decorated as rulers, and their popularity and influence will be as none other until the fabled time known as graduation. I seek to bring insight into the preparation and politics of this bizarre occurrence."

"You're going to write about Prom?" she said. "Salazar, everyone in the paper is writing about Prom. At least three people signed up for Prom columns on Monday, when you forgot to write your name on the board."

"But they do not write gossip columns," I said. "And besides, don't you have class this period too?"

In the time it took her to respond, I turned and slipped into the boy's lavatory, leaving her unable to pursue.

And so it is that I will be spending the next few issues of this paper (or maybe the posts on my blog, should this be rejected and should I be forced by those in possession of so-called authority to choose a different, less discussed topic) writing about Prom.

This is not a topic for the faint of heart. In preparation for my journey into the depths of Prom, I spoke to one Sarah Robertson today.

"Tell me, Sarah," I said, "how do you fell about the Prom?"

"Well," she said, a sly smile crawling across her lips. "I'm very excited for Prom. I've got my dress all picked out, and I have a date. He's really cute."

As I suspect the readers of this column have grown weary of lengthy discussions of attractive men, I will spare you the contents of the next five minutes of conversation and move straight to the sensational and scandalous part.

"Tell me about your dress," I said.

"Well," Sarah said, "it's blue, more royal blue than navy blue. It goes to a bit above my knees, and the waist is cinched with a sash. It cost about three hundred and fifty dollars—"

"Excuse me," I said, "but I think I misheard you. You said your dress cost fifty dollars?"

Sarah looked appalled, like I had just suggested she was going to wear a paper bag with holes cut in it to accomodate the arms and head.

"Three hundred and fifty dollars," she corrected. "It's not that much. You should hear what the rich girls spend on dresses. Oh, and that's not even touching the shoes. My date's paying for the limo and dinner and the tickets. I also have to get good makeup and get my hair done. It's a lot of work, but it'll be so fun."

"Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed today," I said, and then crawled off to weep into my eight-dollar-and-fifty-cent secondhand microcassette recorder. After that, I got to thinking about the purchasing power of three hundred and fifty dollars. If I have done my math correctly, accounting for sales tax, it would purchase three hundred and nineteen McDoubles. That, for reference, is 124,410 calories worth of hamburger, including 6,061 grams of fat. For the same price as Sarah's dress, you could get 13.36 pounds of fat from McDonalds.

When you look at it that way, Prom suddenly starts to make a bit more sense.

And, with that, I have exhausted my thousand words for the issue. Next time, I will take you deep into the byzantine corridors of political backstabbing that comprise the royalty voting process. In the interests of true knowledge, I'll even cast a vote myself, and report on that.

Stay safe, and don't be discouraged: there's nothing wrong with joining me on the bus to the dance.

---

It took Steven about an hour and a half to hammer out the typos and settle on his phrasing. By the time he had finished, the rain had ceased completely and the dripping from the branches had diminished past the point of notice. He took a deep breath, stretched his fingers, and read the whole thing through again, checking for flow. He wasn't too worried about getting in trouble over what he'd written; Patricia, the junior girl who edited his section, was a good friend and collaborator of his. The two of them often complained about each other in fun, and it was certainly not the first time Steven had played off one of their exchanges to pad out a writing.

The truth was, he wasn't all that interested in Prom. He was going, of course. It was basically required, not just by tradition but by his own sense of duty. Surely there would be something at Prom worth writing about.

His primary concern was that he wasn't going to have any fun while actually at the event. Steven was not a huge fan of dancing. He wasn't really into the kitschy, faux-romantic nature of the Prom tradition. He was, just possibly, a bit bitter that he hadn't worked up the nerve to ask anybody yet, a state of affairs which was unlikely to change.

But that was something he could ruminate about later. He heard the door shut downstairs. He heard his father call out, announcing his return from work.

With a smile, Steven stood and left his room. Right now, what he really wanted was a conversation to occupy his time.

((Steven Salazar continued in The Party Was Over Then, Too))