Fly With Fire

by Frances Randon

  Mo raised her arms and a short sheer tunic with gauzy fishtails is pulled over her head and adjusted by Betty. She sat back down allowing Betty to arrange a garland and short veil on her head and face. “This is better, Betty. I can see through this much better. Thank you.”

  Ling, the contortionist Roddy had complimented strides over. “Mo, you going to the party? How ‘bout we see if anything looks good there then go downtown?” She bends her arm impossibly around her back. Her hair is short and spiky, but shellacked back and sprayed green. Her costume is almost sprayed on as well. Her snake makeup uncomfortably realistic.

  “God, Ling, I just want to go back to my room. I know I have to make an appearance but that’s it.” Mo looked at Ling through the veil. “Why not ask Linc?”

  “Might as well ask my brother.” Ling’s head jerked toward the music. “All work and no play, Mo.”

  The music rises up to fill the auditorium. In a fantastic world created with light, color and silk, sirens sing joyously of an ancient paradise. Most of the audience does not understand the words of the song being sung in French but it’s easy to gather the meaning by observing the symbols displayed by the performers. Juggler’s twirl and throw long sticks to which are tied colorful silk ribbons which symbolize the blooms of spring. Multi colored silks are suspended from the air where acrobats dressed in costumes representing flora and fauna pivot and bend in elegant postures.

  An innocent swings on a garland sheathed swing. Her long black hair is braided, a dark contrast to the virginal white dress. A garland around her head adds to the sense of purity. The young virgin wears a short veil to conceal her beauty from lustful mortals who might spy her. She holds freshly picked flowers in her hand. She does a dance in celebration of spring. She twirls around the ropes of the trapeze then sails to another garlanded swing. Attendants swirl and float surreally around the virgin on white silks falling from Mount Olympus itself. The gods of Olympus watch with pleasure from on high, doing their own dances on suspended rings of gold. The diaphanous fishtails flow behind and around the virgin. She hangs like a floating angel as the trapeze swings through the air. Banners unfurl as the light on the virgin darkens and the audience’s attention is taken to a delightful paradise of playful and amazingly agile creatures that fly and tumble and sail through the air.

  The stage is an eye popping fantasy of light and color. An agile snake twists and turns in the lovely garden. Its sinuous body performing feats that bring forth sounds of awe from the audience. Tumblers dressed like monkeys dart about. Unseen jugglers hurl lifelike birds through the air creating a perfect illusion. A lion rambles through and sniffs the snake then sees a monkey and gives playful chase. Various animals dart and play, leaping, spinning and thrilling to the pleasures of paradise. All is joy and happiness in the garden of life.

  Now attention is drawn again to the lovely virgin enjoying the delights of paradise. A dramatic drumming accompanied by lightning startles the girl. The colors below are suddenly replaced by red. Fire eaters blow fireballs from the various levels of the stages. With a flash of sparks and smoke, Hades appears. For a moment the innocent is bewildered and drops her bouquet.

  The innocent senses danger. But Persephone is a daughter of Zeus. She will not succumb to the desires of the god of the underworld. She rises to face him but around her the garlands begin to fall away. He comes to her, she moves the other way. Her flight is graceful, but only delays the inevitable. He looms nearer, and as she falls he catches her. He has her by the ankles, the fishtails wavering around her. He swings her out. She somersaults and spins and leaps. The sirens now sing of Persephone’s great temptation. Long banners of red fall from above and down them slide demons that spin and glide on the flames. Persephone escapes but is captured again. They swing and twirl in a seductive dance of desire and fear. Then finally he has her and the swing starts to fall. The audience gasps. Persephone struggles but he holds her firm. As they land on the stage below, they are obscured by the silken flames. The music rumbles quietly, then burst into an electric keening. Now the flames dance and the animals catch each other in their own maddened mating. Red gowned singers marching with torches wail ominously. Demons dance and the snake has taken on a menacing persona, slithering in and out among the dancing demons, stopping to contort into frightening postures tongue darting out threateningly.

  Drums pound and the demons become more excited and enact various feats of acrobatics. Demons fly and twirl on the trapezes above. The wailing grows louder and then coalesces into a single high pitched note. Then a song begins to welcome the Betrothed of Hades. The flames part and up rises the innocent, rising on a trapeze into the air. She wears a circlet of fire on her head. Her skin is kissed by flame. She is of the fire. Higher she rises. Hades follows up a silken rope. His powerful body seems to glide up the rope against the laws of physics. Standing on the bar, the future queen of the Underworld then loops and twirls. Hades meets her and they dance a dance of promise flying in Hades’ dark sky.

  Hades lands on the stand and prepares his bride’s gifts. She is ready as she hangs by one knee. Flaming batons suddenly appear in her hands. She flies through the air twirling the batons which are lit at both ends. She tosses them back. Then she is tossed flaming rings which she catches on her wrists and spins ‘round and ‘round. She tosses the rings to Hades minion as the Lord of the Underworld swings out to her. She dives to him and caught, is launched into a somersault back to the other swing. The rings of fire fly back to her and are never seen to stop moving as she catches the flaming batons. The batons twirl as the rings orbit her wrists. This, while she swings upside down on the trapeze suspended in Hell’s smoky night. She tosses the batons and the rings and receives large hoops of flame. She hangs from the trapeze manipulating the hoops as Hades darts and flies from one swing to the other anxious his bride accept his gifts. The burning hoops drop and the couple burning for their marriage of fire loop and catch each other until the dreadful keening grows softer as Persephone and Hades court in flames. An illusion of fire surrounds them as if they are being consumed by it. The lights go down as Persephone is consumed by the flames of love.

  The music reaches a crescendo as the swing lowers once more into Hell. The audience, silent, remains transfixed as all goes quiet and dark. The lights come up. The audience roars.

  “Intermission. A bright spotlight follows as Trollie, a red and black faced demon, pedals his unicycle across a cable. Bursts of flame shoot up at his bottom as he stops and starts occasionally jabbing a trident at the flames in frustration. As soon as he has subdued one flame another blasts against his bottom. The audience laughs.

  “You are sooo beautiful my queen of Hell. Come to my room tonight. I’ll make you burn!” Claude grazed his fingertips down the side of Mo’s skin tight leotard. She looked at him through lowered lids. The show had been a phenomenal success. Nothing, almost nothing could dampen Mo’s mood. Except Claude’s idiocy.

  “I’m sorry but I never sleep with someone who’s broken up with me before I even knew we were going together. I don’t believe in the triumph of hope over experience and all that…crap. Let’s take our last bow and get out of this hell.” He took her hand and after kissing it with a look that said he knew better, raised it high. They bowed while roses and other tokens landed on the stage. They spread their hands to include the other performers in the applause. The crowd cheers and applauds over and over. Finally they are able to make their exits.

  “Mo, Mo! Here.” Misha had gathered an armload of roses from the stage. He held them out to her. He looked down shyly.

  “Thank you, Misha, that’s very thoughtful.” She took the roses and pressed her face against them. She gave him a smile and turned for the dressing room.

  “So you play with Misha now. And you accuse me?” Claude’s normally jovial face had taken on a stern air. His blue eyes were hot with jealousy.

  “You’ve been ridiculous enough for one day, Claude. You didn’t find me half dead from suffocation on h
is chest. Let’s just let it go. It’s a dead end.”

  She turned away and was startled when he grabbed her arm. “No woman walks away from me”.

  “Wanna bet?” She jerked her arm away. He reached toward her but was interrupted by Roddy. He gave Claude a sharp look.

  “Bellisimo! Bellisimo! My beautiful Queen of Hades! Excellent! Great job, Claude.” But his friendly tone didn’t match the stern warning in his eyes as he looked at the Frenchman.

  “Wonderful performance, Monica,” Luciana put in without warmth. “Claude, your role is almost as important,” she gave him a smile like a cat toying with a mouse. He gave her a look Rodrigo took no notice of but Mo would have described as lethal.

  “Wonderful show my lovelies. We celebrate tonight with the Mayor. The Mayor of Chicago will be at the party!” Roddy’s glorious mood is untarnished. He knows Mo can and prefers to handle herself.

  “I was thinking I might skip the party; long day. I was…” Right away she knew it was wishful thinking.

  “No, no, no! You no skip party for you. You are the star!” Rodrigo smiled avidly with a sweep at his comb over. The mayor of Chicago wants to meet you! Not me, not Luciana! You, the star!”

  “Not even Claude,” contributed his wife.

  “Of course he wants to meet Claude!” Roddy smoothed his mustache with a roll of his eyes.

  “You can count on me, Roddy. For the good of the company. I will go to change.” Claude stalked off. Mo noticed Lu’s eyes follow him.

  Roddy congratulated everyone. From stars to riggers he reminded them of their importance to the success of that night’s show. Luciana smiled graciously avoiding Mo’s eyes.

  “You go get ready, Mo. The Mayor await your entrance.” Roddy offered Luciana his arm. Lu gave Mo a once over, her lips twisted with annoyance.

  The bustle continued as performers shed their garb and their makeup. Mo took a long hot shower scrubbing the heavy makeup and the glitter off her face. With a towel around her head, she donned a terry bathrobe. It felt good to be clean and cool again. The lights in the arena were hot, the tension hotter, “Just add fire,” she said to herself. She rubbed moisturizer on her skin, essential after the scubbing her skin had needed. She saw the sparkle of glitter in her hair. There was always some no matter how much you rinsed. At least one sparkle in her hair, on a lash, on her chest. She was rubbing her hair with the towel and eyeing how dry Ling’s hair was. Mo’s dryer had arrived broken so she waited to borrow the contortionists’.

  “You know, I just don’t like the way it transitions. When I come back out to hell I have to do that quick change. The intermission doesn’t work. We need to rework this. Roddy agrees but home office says do the intermission. Claude is becoming a pain in the ass.” Mo frowned into the mirror.

  “Well, you’re the Queen of Hell. Your hero is the Devil. What do you expect? Besides, front office ought to know by now that they need to leave those decisions to Roddy and the production designers, with Roddy being the final word. But they just don’t get it.” Ling was bent over so her short hair hung down from the top of her head and waved the dryer over it, shouting to hear herself. “It’s been so successful so fast they all think they’re geniuses up there. Where would they be without Roddy?” She bounced up and looked at Mo with disgust. “God, we need to lose the lion sniffing me. It’s creepy.”

  “Takes one to know one, Ling. A genius, not a creep.” Mo talked loud over the dryer. Deb smoked a cigarette illegally while Mo frowned at her in annoyance. “But your work was perfect, Ling. You must have great empathy with snakes. I just don’t think it flows. This new production designer needs to work the bugs out. New show. Always stuff. I just wish we’d worked it in a smaller venue first. Are you almost done?”

  “Sorry Mo, Deb’s next. You’re after her. I’m going downtown Monday, wanna go?”

  “I don’t…”

  “It’s Chicago, Mo. They have hairdryers and everything. They also have about a million single men.” Ling handed the dryer to Deb and ran gel through her short hair to spike it up.

  “Even though there’s not a show Monday, you know Rodrigo likes to practice every day. A million?” Mo rubbed an ankle.

  “Don’t blame Roddy. You’re the one who doesn’t know what to do if you’re not in the air. A million single men, Mo. A statistical fact.” Mo smiled at how often Ling created statistics out of thin air to suit her purposes. “The greater area, anyway. Let’s go. I’m sick of hotel rooms and I wanna have some fun while I’m here.” Ling ran black liner around her delicate black eyes so they became the eyes of a gothic vixen. Which in fact she had tattooed on the pulse point of her neck. “Gothic Vixen.” Mo laughed at the incongruity. Ling for all her devil may care bluster was as sweet as they came. Her gothic alter ego a put on. Not that she couldn’t party when the stage lights went off.

  “You want to have fun where ever you are. Don’t you wear enough of that for the show?” She asked Ling who just stuck out her tongue and hissed. “

  “So, you and Claude done?” Ling assessed her makeup.

  “Yeah, show’s over.” Mo waited patiently while Deb blew the dryer at her curls. “It was just a couple dates, Ling.” This she said a little defensively at Ling’s probing gaze. “You thinking on Claude?”

  “No. I did ‘im the first week I was with the show. He’s a player and nothing wrong with that but even I try not to mix sex and work. Mostly. But you should have at least done ‘im. There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun ya know. I’ll see you at the party. Hurry it up, Deb, for Chrissakes!”

  Mo finally got the dryer and took her time with it since she was the last in line. She swept her thick, raven hair into a side ponytail while everyone shimmied into their various evening dresses, leather pants or minis and wandered out. Mo just wanted to go to her hotel room and get a good night’s sleep. “An hour, I will stay one hour,” she promised her reflection, slipping into a mid thigh BeBe silk dress. The turquoise blue complimented her clear, pale skin, the fitted bodice her athletic body. She brushed mineral makeup on her face, added a dab of mascara and considered the job done.

  As an afterthought she decided on a deep red lipstick. It was a party after all. “Karen would be proud of me.” She slipped into her new beaded kitten heels and grabbed her clutch. It was almost eleven. The hall was dim and quiet. She heard the noises of the cleaning crew in the auditorium. It took a moment for her to orient herself towards the back exit. Her heels clicked on the concrete walk. Everyone seemed to be gone. Did she miss the last shuttle? Wasn’t there an exit sign? Wait, was it back there? Did she get left? Shit. Should she go back to the auditorium?

  There was a sound in the dim light behind her. A door creaked. She thought she heard a breath sucked in. Fingers crawled up her spine and caught in her throat. Goosebumps ran along her arms. There was the door. She sighed with relief feeling foolish. Suddenly a man stepped in front of her. She startled and took a few steps backward with a squeak.

  “Ms. Whitman, I’m Zack Burnham, didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Mr. Burnham. Oh. What can I… do you have something to write on?”

  “Sure.” He reached into his jacket pocket and presented a tiny tablet and pen.”

  “To Mr. Burnham” She looked at him. She couldn’t see him very well in the dim light. “Zack.” She wrote briskly. “Ah…’All the best.’ There you go.”

  “Car’s outside.” He grasped her elbow but she pulled away.

  “Now look, Mr. Burnham…”

  “Ms. Whitman, I’m to escort you the restaurant. Mayor’s orders.”

  “Escort? Mayor? Who are you?”

  He flashed a badge. “Detective Zack Burnham, Chicago Police Department.”

  Two

  A driver held the door to a limousine. She nodded and climbed in with what dignity the tightness of her dress would allow. He settled in beside her with a scan at her left hand. She wore no ring. Not everyone wore their wedding band. He closed the door. “Good joke, M
r. Burnham. Big fan, huh?”

  “I did see the show. From the Mayor’s box. Great job but I’m glad the fire department is ready and waiting.” He could smell a light citrus scent. He wondered if it emanated from her hair.

  “We thought we’d try to avoid a second ‘Great Chicago Fire’.” Mo fidgeted with her clutch. Why didn’t someone tell her about the mayor sending a limo? Served her right if the guy took off with her.

  “Well, this is Greendale. I think Chicago’s pretty safe, being a few miles away.”

  “What are you doing here, Detective? You’re a Chicago cop? Mayor Tyler. I get it. Well mighty kind but nobody told me. For all I knew you could have been a kidnapper.”

  “In which case, you’ve made my job pretty easy for me.” His face was in shadows. The lights of the traffic only gave her a glimpse of a strong chin.

  “Is this a gravy job for you or did you pull latrine duty.”

  “As latrines go…” His deep voice had a bit of gravel in it. It sent a shiver along her skin even seconds after he stopped speaking. They pulled into the front of the hotel. She still hadn’t really gotten a good look at him. He opened the door and reached in to assist her. His hand was large and strong. He loomed over her. Not so frightening now, but she wished she could see his eyes. The light was behind him. She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. He offered his arm. The doorman was at the ready. Overdressed people filled the upscale restaurant and nightclub where the party was being held. He guided her to the large, elegant room where she breathed a sigh of relief at seeing familiar faces. There was Roddy, beaming at her and waving her toward himself and she guessed, the great Mayor of Chicago.

  “Momo, Monica Whitman, meet Mayor Tyler. He loved the show, eh Senor Mayor?” Roddy’s Chihuahua eyes beamed proudly at Mo.

  “Well, Burnham, you finally got the star to us. And even more beautiful up close. You had me scared for a moment, Ms. Whitman. Fire is such a dangerous thing to play with.” Tyler is dapper for a barrel shaped man. His tux cut to flatter his large frame. He’s probably in his late fifties but his eyes have a mischievous twinkle that give them a youthful look. Mo can’t help but feel he raids the cookie jar plenty.