“Cider what are you doing?” Harley asks.
“What? I just ate. Oh that's right, sorry Harley, forgot it was a thing of yours. Sorry, he says putting it out in a cup of water.”
The Static whiz crackles and pops to a rock n’ roll love song of mood lifting melody.
“Oh, in all my years, that’s never been there before this minute,” the waitress says and walks back to wiping tables, going on with the cook of how strange that station is.
“That song, we don’t have much longer left.”
“I don’t think we'll make it to both my sparrow,” Popper says, looking to Harley like a sad puppy, who shrugs and says, “we'll have to do it here then.”
Anna realizing they're resigning their last dance to bring her closer to home, shakes her head vigorously no.
“No, no not for me. We have plenty of time,” she says.
“We don't. We have about twenty more tracks,” Harley says.
“I know,” Popper answers “Shhhhh,” putting a finger gently to Anna's lips.
“NO,” Anna barks, biting for his nail, to his horror. “Not because of me, I wouldn't, don't want to be a bother,” she says.
“Don't be silly, Anna you’re pleasantly never a bother.”
“Oh brother,” says Cider.
“Says the other,” Harley says taking Carrots hand in hers.
“Anna we'll see you again sometime, or place. In another Alto I'm sure. We've done this thousands of times at least. No worries okay, we'll have it here.”
“Die here?” She asks.
“No hahahaha, hop here,” Popper says.
“We'll drop you two off after we hop, how's that?” Harley says.
“Where's a station from here?” she asks.
“No station. An airport. The best we could do,” Popper says.
“But what about the tables?” Cider asks picking pieces of pork from his teeth.
“We gotta move em,” Harley says.
“Gimme a minute I just ate alright,” Cider says.
“Cider!” Anna chops the air sharply, silencing the dozen other patrons.
“Can we move them please?” he asks the waitress.
“Sure thing,” the weathered waitress answers already handsomely paid, “but don't mess up the tables. I don't wanna have to set them again,” the waitress says of tables she’s made a million times or more. And the staff help them empty the middle of the room, placing the tables into a twenty four foot ring around an empty floor.
“Make it louder will ya, lovely,” Harley says. The cook obliges by turning the songs for the sparrows up, way up. Now playing an orchestral swell of mismatching sounds as the duo limber up next to each other, shrugging their shoulders and shaking out their limbs like synchronized swimmers.
“Louder please,” Popper shouts.
“And louder still,” Harley yells. The dial is cranked up as far as it can go, raising a random mishmash of horns blowing like they’re battling, drummers running against one another, with the many strings singing out of tune into disorienting clatter of two full big bands playing to their own melodies entirely. The double double bass rumbles through the walls and rattles the windows, shaking the hundreds of little blue lights decorating the ceiling to look like a starry sky. Anna’s gulping lung fulls of rarefying air, sitting still though inside astir in anticipation of the loose legged lover's last dance. Cider is sitting next to her equally enamored of his best friends ritual hop.
“This is nice,” Anna says.
“I've seen them dance a thousand times at least. Always the same dance though never done the same way,” Cider says.
Harley takes his hand in hers, and they give each other a last glance then step chest to breast, close enough to feel each others familiar breath. She, a foot smaller, is looking up to him looking down, filling each other’s eyes with nothing but the others face, each gleefully failing at fighting back smirks and smiles. Putting their hands up as though to surrender and locking palms, then pushing the other out without moving their feet from their touching toes, and resetting breast to chest, Each breathing the others breath.
They do this twice more before she slides to the side and spins under his right arm to his back, then shuffling her feet as he turns to meet her. He matching her tempo with a few fast footsteps of his own, then pulls her back to his embrace then swings her out. She glides like she’s on ice, backwards, on a heel of one foot and the toe of another, then breaking into faster footwork then his. They begin their dance floor duel fueled by their improvising off the others instinctual movements. Each thriving to upstage the other, trying to outfox and trick the other, trading between leading and following, fluttering around on their feet like birds and bees fly and float. Acting out scenes of as though in a musical, of running away and courting, pursuer and pursued. Fiercely flapping their arms, touching, holding the other’s hand, and spinning in and out of each other’s faces gracefully. Their toes tapping and heels sliding, hopping, skipping and stomping on the floor almost faster than the eye can see. Repelling then attracting like poles of a magnet, spinning, cycling from ignoring their lover, to being absolutely irresistible to their other. The duo relishes every enraptured second. in reverie as children under summer time sprinklers, with jubilance exudes of their every fluid move or step of the other, each with crescent moon shaped smiles. Trading between leading and following, swinging in and out, spiraling unevenly around each other as though they're drawing rose patterns on the floor with their hops and steps.
They're stirring around the room, until the room begins stirring in a circle around them. The small stars above are sliding and stretching into hundreds of circular bands of blue light. The glasses on the ring of tables around the ad hoc dance floor start to glow neon orange, when melting as wisps of vapor, and whipping, sweeping circularly to their right to crash into the glasses of the tables upstream. Creating a single sense blistering band of glistening vermilion glass in axis around the core of the dance floor, forming a full circle following a counterclockwise current swirling around the dancing duo. Who’re sweaty, stepping their hearts and souls through the soles of their shoes as a time slowing strobe effect emerges in concurrent shock waves to the irregular rhythm of their hands coming together and separating. Whenever one hops off their feet the audiences heart's skip a beat leaping to their throats and back down to their chests when their toes again touch the ground. The linoleum tiles under them are wearing away, retreating like frost from the heat from their flurrying feet, fading to be clear as glass with endless pitch black beneath. The black beneath is reflecting in perfect symmetry, the spherical bands of colliding light blue neon light blurring around the ceiling to create the illusion of a half sphere above and below. Making a whole sphere of the sliding stars and band of sun's orange wraps around the savory Savoy swing of Harley and Popper.
The fast pace random rattling clatter of the battling big band's rhythms, draws closer, tightening into uneven patterns as they sluggishly synchronize into a single melody. The dueling double bass becomes a duet of smoothly strumming low tones under gusts of bellowing and blustering brass. The stray twangs and strokes of the strings become a chorus to the percussive rumblings of deeply reverberating drums. The shivaree of loud sounds are now drowning any ear that can hear with a single harmonious heart swelling melody. Matching every tilt, twist, turn or leap of the hopping sparrows at the sphere’s neon blue and orange lapping flame center.
The crowd and the two are sitting shocked on the edge of their seats at the rim of the sphere. Anna's teetering on the verge of vertigo, swept into a torrent of infinite inertia that's vacuuming the volumes of their souls and internal organs toward their right, to follow the neon cerulean and vermilion flow of vaporized glass passing warmly around their bodies. Sweat is staining the duo's death day suits as they dance faster and faster stepping to the other’s improvisations. Now with right hands together, Harley leaps to a handstand in the air above him. Kicking out her toes then descending feet firs
t through his legs. Twisting in air to land standing up, sending a shock wave outward as she lands, making the rest of the furnishings and the feet of the onlookers leap a foot from the ground. All stay suspended in mid air for a second, then collectively thumping back to the reflective floor. Facing his back, she grabs his shoulders and leaps to his front, who's now facing her back. Their fluently following the feet of the other without even a glance to the ground. Flawlessly forward and back, in freely flowing movements, they're spinning and speeding up the strobing sphere of neon light enshrouding their moment of greatest living. They reverse their revolutions, causing the spheres rotation of the room to flash bright as striking lightning, repetitively releasing greater radiance of them thriving, aglow. Reacting only to their sparrows movements, flying, dancing in their own stars as the encircling sphere's neon glow grows greater and more intense, frenetically thriving to the frequency of the duo's hastening feet. The energy between them washes over the crowd like waves of static over their sweat and skin. Anna's heart is throbbing across her eyes and temples, hypnotized by their side hops and swivels correlating with the strobes and still frames pulsating closer and closer to until in simultaneity for tens of seconds of pure, thoughtless bliss.
The duo slows, swinging out and toward each other like twisters merging in slow motion. Harley's back comes to rest against Popper's chest as he drapes his long arms over her small shoulders to clasp her hands in his. His shoulders tower over hers, eclipsing her small feminine frame while kissing her on the right side of her neck and cheek. The synchronous strobe of neon light of light blue smeared small stars and raw orange equator stops, and for an instant the sphere is at equilibrium, standing still as an afterglow of the sparrow's last hop. The vermilion ring breaks, snapping like a rubber band as the blue sphere bursts outward like a thousand micro-supernovae. Releasing all the tiny stars energy in unison as a show of light above, reflected perfectly below, though not even touching the table napkins with a touch of air.
They love birds stand out from the others embrace, taking a bow to a clapping applause with whistles and calls for more, the 3 a.m. crowd clamoring for an encore, spoil the enlivened duo with praise, who are practically walking on air off the makeshift dance floor. Sweating and heaving, having heavenly expressions as their faces. Gloating, nearly floating on air with an air of inexpressible elation. Ping a-ping! rings the bell of the starlit Daylight diner's entryway doors opening. It's floors and walls return to the linoleum tiles, grease stains and the Americana decor as the glass door close behind the four. The four return to their blood blemished leather seats and valentine's day countdown, presently playing a song about a garden rose. Dirt road driving under a blinking eclipse as the sun slips behind the moon and they revolve around each other as a pair swing dancers would.
“There's always a dance somewhere Anna,” Popper says.
“Everything is dancing, it's all a dance,” adds Harley laying back in her seat, with laces lapping in the wind. They make a beeline for the airport, where Anna and Cider can take a bus that’ll take them to the bridge and over it, to Central, closer to home, her home. Along the way, each blade of grass seems to be dancing to the beat of the breeze. Easily swaying along with the green yellow blades of grass next to them. Every sensation through her senses amplifies feeling of her being immersed in an ever present sense of déjà vu that's forever present when in the sparrow's presence. Accompanied by a feeling that everything is aligning in an unseen way, that she's seeing the scene from the car before though knows she hasn’t. As unrelated ideas and objects alike are transforming into streams of symbolized thought, acting as emblems recognized by her subconscious rising to the conscious to be understood by Anna as synchronicity.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Throwing stones
“Right on time,” Harley says looking under her shoe to see a set of headlights trailing them from a thousand feet back, though moving no closer. Following them all the way to a bustling seven a.m. airport parking lot filled with taxis and limousines fighting between rows and rows of parked cars. They park the car near the bus terminals to watch a clock above the ticket booth tick down. Sitting in silence next to a tall lamp light, waiting as the planes taking off and landing punctuate the passing of time and the rising tension with their turbine engines flying and falling from the sky.
The four are Idle in the car and in their heads, dreading the approaching moment of farewell between good friends. Popper’s wrapping his nails to a tune onto the dashboard, and Harley's tapping her feet to the gas pedal, revving the engine to a beat of her own.
“You two should really be going,” Popper says.
“What time does our bus come?” Anna asks, reluctant to leave the duo to the fate they've accepted a long, long time ago, and looking for an excuse to stay a minute longer.
“Soon, but our ride’s coming a minute earlier,” Harley replies.
“But there not after us,” she says.
“Anna, they will be when there done with them,” Cider says, “happened to me a couple times already. Besides they’re already pouring into the parking lot. See that,” he says pointing the exit they came, “that's them setting up roadblocks at the entrance's, so.”
“It was nice meeting you two,” Anna says slowly.
“Don't be silly, there's no need to be sad, we'll see you again, most likely,” Popper says assuredly.
“Though maybe not,” says Harley.
“Oh that's right, well...safe travels home, Anna,” Popper says.
“Yeah and take care of this one will ya, he's a little rough around the edges, but a real softy,” Harley says.
“Well, till next time,” Cider says. Knowing he has all of eternity to see his friends again. He taps both the heads of his friends then hops out of the bullet riddled convertible's back seat. Anna leans forward to shake Harley’s hand and peck Popper on his blush covered cheek.
“Now I don't want your last kiss to be a friendly one from me,” Anna jokes.
“Ha, neither do I,” Harley laughs. Anna peels herself from the sweaty leather like a person peels a band-aid from their skin.
“I'm sorry we have to leave you like this,” Anna says.
“Don't worry about us, I mean we're still here, right?” Popper says.
“Besides, it's all more or less choreographed anyway,” Harley says.
“It's what must be done, Carrots...of the juice box gang,” Popper laughs, and Cider smiles.
“It must be a terrible fate to watch your lover die with your own eyes,” she says. not saying, over and over annually until the end of time.
“Que sera, like the song says,” says Harley.
“Again someday,” Cider says tipping an invisible hat.
“Someday soon,” Popper replies, and waves off his friend, and Harley nods.
“Now go, the two of you don't wanna get caught up in this shit close to home do ya.” Popper says while shooing her with his free hand. Anna hesitates in what is supposed to be a hasty escape, so Harley rolls up a travel brochure and starts swatting at her like she's a stray bee buzzing about them. Popper tosses roasted nuts at her one at a time until she resigns to flee for her life, following Cider as he crouches down, weaving between parked cars toward where the buses are bustling most. Leaving the synchronous duo passionately kissing in the front seat. Popper’s hands race through her hair and over her thigh, as Harley's leaden foot red lines the engine with the car in park. She, the greatest drug the pretty boy former skin popping junkie has ever experienced, and he the warmest pillow and blanket she will ever know.
Anna's head pops up over the edge of the driver's side door to say, “Hey I th-” Scaring the daylights out of the duo, who jump out of their tangling tongues and out of their seats, reaching instinctively for the radio dial.
“What the hell are you still doing here?” Harley snarls.
“I just thought you should know there's some guys behind the two vans on the curb in the very front of the airport,” she s
ays with only her eyes over the side of the car.
“Thank you,” Popper says angrily.
“And some more about twenty yards on either side behind me.”
“Thank you, Anna,” Harley says impatiently.
“And some swat trucks pulled in a few seconds ago.”
“Thank you…but really you should be going. Now! we only have three tracks left, okay,” Harley says with salt, though worried for her life, and not for her own or her sparrow’s.
“I was just worried, okay I'll go, take care you two,” Anna says.
“That's sweet of you Anna. I can see why he's so taken with you,” Popper says.
“That idiot really needs a woman like you to balance him out,” Harley says.
“More than you know, take good care of him will you,” Popper says waving her off.
“While you can, at least. Take care Carrots,” Harley waves goodbye.
“Wait,” she says.
“What is it?” Popper asks.
“What's it like, seeing your one true love die in front of you?” she asks.
“It's the most horrific thing I've ever known in all my lives, there is nothing that even compares,” Popper says.
“Maybe a baby dying in its mother's arms,” Harley says, and the duo shrug in agreement and say together, “Gooodbye Carrots!”
“Goodbye,” she bites her lip in leaving, weaving back to an incised Cider impatiently wrapping his fingers on two yellow bus tickets. Tapping his foot to the ground, standing at the open door of the gray bus that's waiting just for her. He’s a bit perturbed, fighting the thought that with the next few steps up the bus stairs they're that much closer to being separated, uncountable Alto’s away from each other the minute they part paths. She scurries up the steps, dodging a doubtful look from him that she's grown used to ducking.
The duo delve back to their other’s lips until the song changes to an upbeat doo wop ditty, the next to last of the countdown, one that the couple could dance to. They hop out of their seats and walk over the trunk. Popping it open and unzipping two old canvas bags, his and hers. Each filled with guns, money, colorful jewels, jewelry and munitions. Rummaging through the trunk, and passing each other the weapon of the others choice, then throwing the bags over their shoulders. She ties a white neckerchief slowly around her neck to feel it wrap tightly around her skin, with a sniffle pulls it until she can barely breath.
The Altonevers Page 32