“I understand, Vivian, and I’m sorry. It’s just not easy to find men I can trust to work in the Palace. Harder still to find the men with both the brawns and the brains needed to bounce at the front door.” Lady Finch adjusted Vivian’s pink wig. “A few hours isn’t nearly enough time to find some help for Tarence. We’ll soldier on, and we’ll get through it. We’ve been through dustier and harder times, Vivian.”
Vivian’s eyes flashed about the Palace. “It’s only going to get worse when all the polishers flood into here on their unexpected holiday. The walls are going to collapse if we can’t prevent those polishers from fighting inside the Palace.”
“Don’t look so cross, Vivian. It’s good whenever so many polishers enter our door.”
Lady Finch sighed as Vivian’s white, stiletto boots stomped towards one of the stages. Vivian hoped to work one of empty lulls between Satinka’s performances, and Lady Finch wished her good luck. It wasn’t easy for any of the girls to attract any kind of shiner now that the polishers remained so enchanted by Satinka. She was thankful that Satinka had thus far remained adamant in her refusal to accept any of the shiners the polishers tossed in her direction. Lady Finch suspected she would soon need to gift many of Satinka’s shiners to the other dancers if she hoped to keep even her most loyal dancers, stunners in their own right, from forever leaving the Crystal Palace.
“Look out, Big Bird! Behind you!”
Indigo Satin shuffled atop a pair of silver and sequined high-heels and grabbed Lady Finch’s shoulder, pulling the Crystal Palace’s proprietor against the wall a second before a glass beer bottle whistled through the space just occupied by Lady Finch’s head. The crowd roared, and chaos exploded. The polishers rushed towards the epicenter of the sudden din. There, a pair of polishers faced off against each other. One of the polishers flicked his wrist and pulled a jagged sliver of glass from his long shirtsleeve. The other polisher grinned at his opponent’s glimmering weapon before he broke a bottle across a nearby table to produce a jagged weapon of his own. Both of the polishers shifted their glass weapons between their hands as they circled around the center stage where Satinka would return to perform another dance.
Lady Finch screamed. “Tarence! Over here!”
Tarence pushed his way through the polishers. Though they had always been terrified by Lady Finch’s tall, muscular and mean doorman, those polishers resisted Tarence’s efforts to move them from his path. None of the polishers wanted to give up his place close to Satinka’s stage. Satinka’s body, her movement and her magic had made them courageous, just as it made them foolish. Tarence growled. He elbowed several to the floor. He kicked many in the shins. Still, the polishers refused to meekly clear out of his way, for on that night, Tarence didn’t fight against polishers. On that night, he fought against the crowd, and that mob knitted more tightly together each time Tarence smashed against it. Soon, Tarence discovered that even his strength stalled and prevented him from getting any nearer to the center of the disruption.
One of the combatants snarled and lunged his shard of jagged glass at his opponent.
That opponent jumped out of the glass’s arc before the weapon ripped through skin. “We always knew you to be a slow polisher, Ray Henkel. Your blade proves it. Know your right place and step to the back of the line. Satinka doesn’t want to dance for any polisher as dull as you.”
Ray Henkel swiped a second time at his adversary, and again, his blade found no bite. “You’ve camped your fat ass in front of Satinka’s stage for the last two nights, Denny Allen, and I’m not going to let you do it again. All the polishers know you’re nothing more than a lift man. All talk. No action. Satinka’s not interested in talk.”
Both of the polishers grunted and swiped at each other at the same moment. Both of their blades tasted blood, both shards of jagged glass sliced through forearm muscles. Both of the polishers shrieked and jumped backwards into the mob, blood splattering upon the Crystal Palace’s fine crimson carpeting. The sight of the blood stunned the crowd.
Tarence exploited the quiet lull and roared through the final polishers crowding his path to the injured combatants. “The two of you better pray neither of you stain Lady Finch’s carpet any more with another drop of blood! Either of you bleed any more on the floor, and I’ll make sure neither of you ever enter the Palace’s door again!”
Lady Finch snapped her fingers, and the crowd of polishers dispersed. “Drag them out of here, Tarence. Call a taxi for them, and pay both of their tolls to the emergency room. The Palace will provide the shiners needed for their stitches.”
“Sure thing, Lady Finch.”
Lady Finch watched the crowd’s faces quickly again smile. She couldn’t afford to tolerate any violence, but Lady Finch knew she had to proceed carefully. She couldn’t fault the crowd too much for any hurt or damage Satinka’s dance inspired, lest she dulled the passion that kept the shiners flowing so easily. Satinka was a stunner unlike anyone in the Palace had ever seen. Stainka drove everyone mad, and the stages would be flooded with polishers crazy to toss their coins in that dancer’s direction before the night ended, all of them mad to attract Satinka’s attention on the night of their unexpected holiday.
Perhaps it was time to let the other girls share in Satinka’s success. Satinka deserved to take the rest of the night off. Let the polishers catch some breath while they enjoyed how the other girls swirled and swayed. Indigo Satin, Merry Fortune and Vivian Vixen had never before disappointed the polishers.
“Take the stage, Indigo.”
Lady Finch couldn’t believe it, but Indigo Satin gulped. “Are you sure?”
“Please don’t turn modest on me now.” Lady Finch shook Indigo’s shoulders. “Do your feline number. Pull out your old cat costume, the one you used to wear to gather all those shiners those first nights you stepped on my stages, Indigo.”
“But Satinka.”
“Don’t say another word about Satinka.” Lady Finch hissed. “You’re a stunner too, Indigo, and tonight I’m paying double your share. Now hurry and get on one of these stages.”
Lady Finch hurried behind the purple curtain. She had to reach Satinka before that magic dancer showed one sliver of her shoulder to those polishers waiting at the front of the stage. Satinka would have to understand.
Lady Finch prayed that Satinka would. She worried that her Crystal Palace wouldn’t stand for much longer if Satinka refused to accept her offer to take the rest of the night off.
* * * * *
Chapter 5 – Buffalo Dance
“I promise you, Manetti, tonight, I’m gonna to sit right up there at the front of Satinka’s stage. I’m gonna stretch my arm and offer my palm all full of shiners, and Satinka’s going to purr her way over to me and let me run my hands all up and down her thighs, is gonna just smile and moan as I work my way over all over her curves and swells.”
Manetti rolled his eyes. “Don’t ruin my memory of Satinka with any of your dreams, Toby. I can’t stand to imagine any image of you touching my Satinka. And you better not do anything to get us kicked out of the Palace.”
“That’s your problem,” Toby snorted. “You never push for anything. How do you know what you’re capable of feeling if you never even try? You settle too much for all the easy things.”
“Maybe so,” and Manetti peeked again towards the Palace’s purple curtain, “but don’t forget that I polish just as much glass as you.”
Toby wanted to kick the back of his friend’s knees until Manetti fell onto the ground. He despised his friend’s height. Manetti had to be close to seven feet tall, and Manetti didn’t have to stretch to get a clear view towards the stage upon which Satinka would soon be dancing. Toby, however, was well short of six feet, and he would have to jump and jostle between shoulders to get any peek of Satinka. Yet Toby didn’t dare kick at the back of his companion’s knees. He didn’t want Tarence to toss hom out the door. He wasn’t about to risk missing the next time Satinka took the stage.
“Talk on the towers says Satinka’s planning a real special dance for tonight.”
“Don’t tell me anything I already know, Manetti.”
“Where do you think Satinka came from?”
Toby shrugged. “I don’t care where Satinka came from as long as I get to look at her.”
“Some say she blew in with the dust.”
“And that would be fine with me,” Toby chuckled. “Let the dust carry something nice to us for a change. Let the dust give us something all us polishers don’t have to wash away. Who knows? Maybe the dust’s trying to make friends out of us polishers.”
“I think she comes from the pits.”
Toby grunted. “Seriously, Manetti? The pits? I can’t believe for a second that any of those dull gypsum diggers could ever mate with one of those thick-boned pit women to produce a daughter that looks like Satinka.”
Manetti thought about punching Toby’s teeth down his throat, but he also feared the Palace’s doorman. “My family came from the gypsum pits before we migrated to the city to help clean all the glass towers.”
“Thus proving my point.”
Manetti shook his head and imagined Satinka growing up in the gypsum community of his forefathers while he waited with the other polishers for the appearance of their favorite dancer. Manetti imagined Satinka making a dusty, gypsum father proud, imagined how Satinka might have given life to one of the small pit communities covered in ash. Manetti dreamed of the songs the simple gypsum miners might have composed upon their simple guitars in celebration of Satinka’s beauty. He imagined how Satinka may have helped those who worked the pits remember finer things than all the gypsum gray – watercolors of rainy and smudged valleys, ermine fabrics and satin bedding, the tingle and taste of bourbon, the smell of a lover’s perfume.
Manetti was not alone in such dreaming. While Satinka danced upon the Crystal Palace’s stage, the polishers couldn’t resist imagining her hips against them, her breath in their ear. No line or wait was too long for the opportunity to watch her. For Satinka returned life to a barren and dusty realm. The polishers washed the dust from the towers, and Satinka’s danced washed that grime from them. Polishers invented so many stories upon their scaffolds concerning their favorite dancer’s origins. Some said she rose from some mountain hovel after being conceived in one of the coal mining communities hewn into the rock. Others claimed Satinka came from the wild, barren lands, where the wind lifted the dirt before delivering such dust to the glass towers, so that perhaps Satinka was an offering from the sky after the wind had tormented the polishers for so long. Still others argued that Satinka must’ve originated in a much more distant land, that she must’ve walked out of the gray sea, a favorite girl of some far-flung coastal villa forced to hunger while the waters continued to spoil. Collected all together, those stories spoke of the many lands the polishers long ago knew before riding the lift man’s cages; and all those stories expressed the polishers’ fear that too much dust, and too much ash, choked the world of their time, and all those stories spoke of the polishers’ hopes that a woman shaped liked Satinka might, somehow, return a small acre of green to a world turned white with bone.
The Crystal Palace’s purple curtain swayed, and the polishers erupted in delight.
“He she comes, Toby.”
“I warned you, Manetti, not to tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
Satinka danced onto the stage, dressed in a strange wardrobe of brown hides. The polishers swooned for the way a headdress of horns and feathers accentuated the sway of her hips. The polishers stared upon the braided locks of Satinka’s dark hair, their appetites pushing their imaginations to see the figure concealed by those dark tresses falling beyond her shoulders. The polishers whistled and jeered. Those in the rear of the crowd pushed against those in the front, and those in the front threw elbows at those in the back. Heated blood charged the air. Wild fever gripped the polishers, and the smallest spark threatened to send the polishers into a madness that endangered Lady Finch’s Crystal Palace.
The drums started to beat just as the polishers roared in their hunger.
“She looks more incredible than ever. I’ve never seen her in such a dress. What do you think it means, Toby?’
“How should I know? Isn’t it enough to just stare at her?”
The rhythm seeped beneath the polishers’ skin and stilled their hearts so that the catcalls and the cheers silenced. Satinka arched a hip and leaned a curve of her shoulder forward. The buffalo hide upon her back billowed and twirled. The horns upon Satinka’s buffalo crown rose and fell. Satinka’s feet stomped a dance like none ever seen in the Crystal Palace. She made no move towards that garish, golden pole. She didn’t approach any of the polishers leaning over the stage, no matter how the shiners jangled in their clutching hands. Her hands didn’t move any of those locks of dark, black hair to offer even the slightest glimpse of any of the flesh resting beneath.
Yet the polishers were mesmerized all the same. They inhaled a collective breath, and the anger in their hearts vanished to give room for another sensation. They stomped their polisher boots to the rhythm of those drums and the rhythm of Satinka’s dance until Lady Finch’s walls trembled.
Time spent upon the towers took a toll upon a polisher’s vision - no matter the quality of sunglasses the polisher wore on those bright days when the dust remained quiet and the sun’s reflection burned within the glass. But none of the polishers in that Palace would say that stigmatisms of the eye or filmy layers of cataracts could explain what they believed they saw next in Satinka’s dance. The polishers believed something miraculous hovered above Satinka as she stepped her dance, some primal power that throbbed over her head. The beating drums grew louder. Satinka arched to the booms. The polishers stomped harder and harder.
* * * * *
“You should’ve forced her from the stage, Lady Finch. You should’ve threatened to show her the door.”
Merry Fortune leaned against Lady Finch as the two peered through the purple curtain that separated the dressing room from the Palace’s central stage. The walls shook as the polishers stomped their boots to the rhythm of the drums booming through the club’s speakers. Chandeliers swayed. Glasses teetered and shattered upon the floor behind the bar. Lady Finch’s other dancers set down the serving trays Satinka’s presence forced them to carry, and they drifted towards the exits.
Indigo Satin pressed against Lady Finch’s back. “You’d both better exit through the dressing room door with me and Vivian. There’s never been enough doors in this place in case of a fire, and I hate to think of how hard it’s going to be to escape this deathtrap once the polishers bring down the ceiling.”
Merry Fortune took a step back. “You should never have let her dance tonight, Lady Finch, and all those polishers should never have been given a surprise holiday.”
“I promised Satinka that I’d never pull her off of the stage,” Lady Finch growled. “Hasn’t she given us all enough of the shiners she’s earned to deserve at least that promise?”
Lady Finch held her breath as she watched Satinka dance from the other side of that purple curtain. Motes of plaster fell from the dressing room’s ceiling. Mirrors toppled and shattered upon the floor. Soon, Lady Finch feared that the polishers would rattle the Crystal Palace upon its foundations if they stomped for much longer.
But just as the dressing room’s suspended lighting swayed, Satinka collapsed into a ball upon the stage. The buffalo hides covered every peek of her flesh. The buffalo horns of her headdress pointed towards the polishers, who ceased stomping their boots as they stared at the crumbled dancer.
“What are you doing, child?” Lady Finch growled. “You can’t break down. Not now. Not after you’ve brought all that polisher blood to a boil. Get up and finish your dance. They’ll bring the Palace down on top of all of us if you don’t get up.”
And then, a great bellow rumbled from beyond the Palace’s walls. The polishers ripped their eyes off of Satink
a and turned their gaze towards the Palace’s entrance. The bellow roared a second time, booming above the polishers’ heads, its echo surrounding them as they stood, dumbstruck, in front of Satinka’s stage. Low grunts answered the bellow’s second call. Some surge of power flooded outside of the Palace, and the floor beneath the polishers again trembled. The air soon filled with the sounds of snorts and grunts, with the noise of pounding hoofs, with the vibration of thousands upon thousands of hooves stampeding just beyond the Palace’s front entrance.
Polish, Dust and Sparkle Page 4