Since the local high school promenade is approaching, I thought I’d offer a lesson learned from my own prom.

Here it is: Don’t listen to your basketball coach. Perhaps a little backstory is in order.

When I was 10 years old, I moved from Ontario, Canada, to Tennessee. I didn’t know what to expect and had heard strange things about the American South, like the weird food they eat — for instance, chitlins, which are made from hog intestines, or grits, which are made from, well, nobody really knows what grits are made from.

People lived in towns with even weirder names like Toad Suck or Bugscuffle. I got my first sense of what lay in store when I was unpacking. I pulled my hockey skates out of a box, and my aunt said, “Are those hockey boots?” Hockey boots. I put the skates back in the box.

The high school I attended was quite small and didn’t offer much in the way of athletics. They had a football team, but I don’t look good with helmet hair, so that was out. They had wrestling too, or as they called it, raslin’. I didn’t think wearing a mask and hitting my opponent with a metal folding chair was my scene, though, so that left basketball. The good news was I made the team. The bad news was I was the shortest guy on it. I was basically practice fodder. During games I would ride the pine and check out each squad. Generally, we had the best looking cheerleaders. During halftime I followed my coach around with an ashtray as he gave his come-from-behind speech, and he always gave the come-from-behind speech because we stunk.

The girls’ team, on the other hand, was a different story. They were gifted athletes that made it all the way to the state finals. They lost in the last three seconds on a controversial play to a large, powerhouse school. I can remember those last three ticks of the clock like it was yesterday. The team was composed mostly of seniors, and when prom came around, their coach wanted to make sure each one of his girls would go to their last high school dance. The thing was not all of them were going to be asked. That’s where I come in.

The girls’ coach approached me one day and said that if I would go to the prom with “Elbows” (so named, behind her back, for her rebounding skills), he would let me use his Datsun 240z sportscar. I didn’t even have my driver’s license, so I’d take the school mascot to prom for a chance to drive a 240z.

Since I was a sophomore, the rules stated that I could be asked to the prom but I couldn’t ask anyone. This problem was solved one day when I looked up from my desk in English class to see Elbows looming in the doorway. My teacher raised an eyebrow as I scurried to the door to meet her. She looked nervously over my head and said, “So you wanna go to the prom or something?” I looked up to her face, envious of her mustache, and said yes.

As the big day approached, I went to the coach and asked when I could pick up the car. He leaned back in his chair and chuckled.

“Austin,” he said, “there is no way in hell I am giving my brand new 240z to a kid on prom night.” I stood there dumbstruck. I had the corsage ordered, the powder blue tuxedo rented and a reservation at the Crimson Shrimp — a Red Lobster wannabe. I briefly considered backing out but remembered what Elbows could do to the competition and that was with a referee close by.

So instead of driving my date to the prom in a red hot sports car, I was being driven by my date in mom’s beige sedan with headrest doilies. The prom itself was pretty standard fare, bad punch, musicians just beyond garage band status and lots of dance moves you’d like to forget. Then came the last song of the evening, a slow dance. I rubbed my sweaty hands over my ruffled shirt, and we moved to the dance floor where I nervously put my cheek on her collar bone.

During the ride home she talked about plans after school, but I wasn’t really listening. My mind was occupied on how the evening would end. How far did she think she would get with me. How far would I let her get, under the shirt or over? I needn’t have worried, though. The date ended with a peck on the cheek and a chuck on the shoulder.

I never saw Elbows after that night, and I’ve still never driven a 240z.

— Chris Austin is a writer and the circulation manager at The Beachcomber.