Dance, Gladys, Dance

by Cassie Stocks

  Half an hour later, Miss Kesstle and Girl brought Sunday dinner over in the taxi, fancy china and all. Girl helped her up the ladder and then made several trips to bring the dinner up.

  Miss Kesstle stuck her hand out to Lady March. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Mr. Hausselman’s neighbour, Miss Kesstle.”

  Lady March grabbed her in a big hug. “We’ve all met before.”

  “No,” said Miss Kesstle, “I haven’t met you before.”

  “Oh, yes, we all know each other from other times,” said Lady March, “and everyone here on this roof, I know I’ve been with before.”

  Miss Kesstle waited until she moved away and then turned to me. “I’d know if I’d met her before. Is she afflicted? Like Mr. Hausselman?” Miss Kesstle tapped her temple. “You know.”

  “Oh,” I nodded solemnly. “Yes she is, New Age Madness.”

  “I haven’t heard of that,” said Miss Kesstle watching Lady March walk over to Mr. H., “but maybe Mr. Hausselman and her would be good together, if they both have brain troubles.”

  We all had dinner and then Miss Kesstle wanted to leave. She was still darkly predicting that the riot squad would show up at any moment and blast us off the roof. I went to look for Girl to let her know that Miss Kesstle was going. I couldn’t find her anywhere, nor was Marilyn at her usual spot by the smokestack. I was about to give up when I heard giggling from behind the doorway that led to the staircase. I opened the door and found Girl and Marilyn sitting together on the top step. It looked like they were performing some sort of junior-high science experiment. Girl grasped an Orange Crush pop can sideways. I could see a hole covered in tinfoil on the side of it. Marilyn held a lighter to the bottom of a spoon. “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “Is she in there?” Miss Kesstle stood right behind me. I turned and tried to block the doorway.

  “No! She’s —”

  “I’m right here,” said Girl, pushing past me. Her eyes were the size of Jupiter’s moons and she had a big smile on her face. Marilyn followed behind her.

  “Wow,” said Girl, “it’s dark out here.” She turned to Marilyn.

  “When did it get so dark?”

  Marilyn furrowed her brow and tried to look serious. “Yesterday, I think,” she said.

  Girl started to laugh and sat down on the floor. “Yesterday. Yesterday. Yesterday. Yester. Day. What the fuck is a Yester?”

  “Girl,” said Miss Kesstle, “are you drunk?”

  “Oh no,” said Girl, “I’m just happy. Happy to be alive.”

  Miss Kesstle stepped closer to her, leaned over, and sniffed. “You don’t smell like alcohol. It’s drugs, isn’t it? You’re using drugs.”

  “Drugs,” said Girl, “are using me.”

  “I’ll have to ask you to come to my place and get your things,” said Miss Kesstle. She pulled her hands in close to her chest. “I said you could only stay if you promised to not use drugs or drink anymore and you promised. Do you remember?”

  “Oh no,” said Girl, “but I didn’t. I wasn’t.”

  “It’s not her fault,” said Marilyn. “I brought it up and asked her to come and smoke it. I convinced her. I told her no one would notice and that a little bit wouldn’t hurt. It’s my fault.”

  “Maybe we should just leave this alone for now,” I said.

  Miss Kesstle stepped towards Marilyn. “What were you thinking? Do you want her to end up like you?”

  “No,” said Marilyn, “I don’t. I’d apologize better, but I think I need to sit down first.” She slid down the wall and sat beside Girl.

  Girl patted her knee. “Wicked shit, hey?”

  Marilyn suddenly pushed herself upright again. Miss Kesstle took a step back. “I’ll leave,” she said. “It was my fault. Could someone just help me down the ladder? I can’t find my shoes or my wings.” They both started to giggle again.

  “Birds of a feather, blah, blah,” said Girl.

  Miss Kesstle said, “I’m going too. Girl, you need to think about what you want. I don’t think you would have done this if it weren’t for the influence of — others.” She threw Marilyn a dirty look. “But you need to be able to say no.”

  “I know,” said Girl, “but when I saw it, I just couldn’t help it.”

  “All right,” said Miss Kesstle. “We’ll talk more later. I’m going now.” She took a few steps, then turned. “You know you can’t fly, right? Don’t walk off the edge of the building.”

  Girl nodded. “No flying, nope.”

  “All right, be careful up here.”

  We got Miss Kesstle and Marilyn down the ladder and they went off into the night in their separate directions.

  Later that night, I sat with Girl near the back of the roof. It was quiet; most everyone had gone to sleep. There was a row of petrel heads lined up on the ledge across from us. I stared up at the few stars I could see through the city air. Pigeons cooed from a ledge a storey below. Girl leaned back with her eyes closed.

  “Girl?” I whispered.

  “Uh huh.” She opened her eyes.

  “Why do you do drugs?”

  “Well, that’s a conversation opener,” she said and closed her eyes again. She pulled her sleeping bag up higher. “Because it’s boring.”

  “What’s boring?”

  “I don’t know. Life, I suppose.” A siren sounded in the city somewhere and was joined by another.

  “You’re killing your brain cells.”

  “So? What do I need them for? I mean, what am I saving them for — a rainy day?”

  “You need brains to make your art,” I said. “You won’t know if you can make it unless you try.”

  “Did you try?”

  I stared at her, flummoxed. Had I tried? Before I met Gimlet, I was filled with work and working hard, and then what? And then I’d decided that I couldn’t do it on my own, that I needed a step up, a hand up, first from Gimlet, then from Norman, and where had that left me?

  I looked at her, her long hair tangled around her face. “I did try and then I gave up,” I said. “But it was giving up that stopped me, not not trying hard enough.”

  “I think that’s a double negative,” said Girl.

  “You know what I mean. You can only care about what it gives you. If more comes, fine. If not, that’s fine too.”

  Girl shrugged. “And,” she said, “I like being stoned.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  A Gnarled Root

  STORMY PETREL SIT-IN : DAY SIX

  “Frieda, could you go downstairs and get us more paint? There’s some in a box in the cupboard beside the sink in the craft room.”

  “Sure.” I was happy to get away for a few minutes. I loved being on the roof and with everyone on it, but I now knew never to join a commune.

  I went down the stairs and pushed open the metal door leading onto the main floor. It felt like being inside a school during summer holidays. A faint smell of glue and poster paint lingered in the halls. The art hanging on the walls seemed like cave paintings, relics left from a people long since past. The bottoms of loose pages fluttered slightly as I walked by.

  “I never got to be a part of a protest before. That Lady March, she would have made a good Doukhobour.”

  “Gladys! Where’ve you been?”

  “It’s crowded up there. I haven’t been able to get you alone for a minute.” She floated along beside me. I noticed that the pages on her side of the wall did not move.

  “I haven’t been able to get me alone for a minute either,” I said.

  We entered the main craft room. I kneeled on the floor and started pulling jars of paint out of the cupboard. Some were almost completely dried out and I had to open all of the jars to check.

  “I wonder if these would reconstitute if we added water?”

  Gladys sat on the counter beside me, her feet dangling down.

  “I need to finish my story,” she said, her voice dropping low. “I need to tell you what happened.”

  “You don�
��t have to,” I said. “I can probably imagine it. I mean, what were you supposed to do with no money and nowhere to go? What about your parents? Wouldn’t they have helped you?” I twisted the top off a jar and flakes of paint fell in my lap.

  “I was ashamed to go to my parents,” she said. “They hadn’t spoken to me since I ran away to Toronto. I thought once I had the baby they’d forgive me, but I never had the chance. I went to see a friend from school. She made a big show of being happy to see me, but she was scared. She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and she kept looking over her shoulder as if I might split in two and come up behind her with an axe or something. I hadn’t realized until then that I was marked by my time in the institution; I’d become the crazy woman. She wouldn’t take me in, but she gave me a little money, some clothes and toiletries. I took the money and got a hotel room. I cleaned myself up and put on a dress. I’d lost a lot of weight in the asylum and the dress hung on me; I had to keep pulling the shoulders up so my bosom didn’t show. I did my hair the best I could. I thought I looked pale so I put on some rouge. I’d never used it before and I guess I went overboard. I used to wonder if all the rest never would have happened if I hadn’t put on all that rouge. I was still a little shaky, but I managed to get myself done up all right I thought. I went for dinner at a cheaper restaurant. I felt strange having dinner alone, but didn’t know what else to do. As I was leaving, a man approached me and whispered something. I didn’t hear him. He jerked his head towards the street and so I followed him, still doing as I was told. I followed him right to his hotel. He led me upstairs to his room, closed the door, smiled at me, and started to take off his pants. I turned my head and saw my reflection in the mirror of the bureau: the low bosom on the ill-fitting dress, the choppy haircut, the bright red circles on my cheeks, my face thin and desperate. Right then, something inside me just died. I imagined myself on my hands and knees screaming and screaming into the carpet but I stood very still. I watched him and I gave up — not on life, but myself. Well then, I thought, it’s come to this, has it? And I just did it.”

  “Oh Gladys,” I said, my voice trembling. Not fair. Not fair. Not not not fair.

  “I took the money and paid for another night at my hotel, not nearly so nice as his. I cried half the night in the hotel room, but I couldn’t feel anything. I’d gone numb. It was like the tears came from my body, not my mind, or myself. It was just my body crying all night. And so it went.”

  “What about dancing? Did you try to find work as a dancer?” I asked. I’d forgotten all about the paint jars.

  Gladys rocked, her hands folded over one another, her head hanging slightly down. “No,” she said. “My legs would have still known how to dance, but that spark of hope or joy necessary to perform had been snuffed out. The last time I ever felt it was the night before my baby was born and I’d danced in the chicken yard. Sometimes when I walked past the theatre and saw photos of the dancers in the marquee, something inside of me would pinch and cramp terribly, and I’d have to walk away. I learned to not look, to not see.”

  “What about the photos of you?”

  “I met some other low women in the city and one introduced me to a photographer. He told us the pictures he took were for his own pleasure; none of us believed it, but what did it matter? What was there to be afraid of, that I would be ruined? Too late for that. He used me as a model a lot. I knew how to move and pose from my dancing. Miss Johnstone, the dancing teacher, would have been appalled at how I used her training.

  I certainly hadn’t worked my way up the social ladder.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Gladys. You know that, right? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She shrugged. “Right, wrong, none of it mattered anymore. I was surviving. That’s all.” She paused. “I saw Jack once when I was standing on the street. He looked at me and laughed. He started to cross the street to come to me and I ran. I knew he was going to offer to pay for my services. I ran until I was nearly out of the city and then I stopped and vomited in a back alley. It’s silly, but that was the only time I felt completely ashamed of what I was doing.”

  “Did you ever go to see your son, Jack Jr.? What happened to him?”

  “He ended up with a drinking problem. He gambled away all of his father’s money. I heard about it in the streets.”

  “You didn’t ever go and see him? Not once?”

  “Jack sent him to school in Australia. He had enough to contend with without having a visit from his mother the whore.

  Jack Sr. was hard on him, I heard. I suppose he hated the part of the boy that was mine. Maybe he saw artistic tendencies in Jack Jr. that he wanted to kill by sending him off to military school. It couldn’t have been a picnic there. Jack wouldn’t give him any money until he proved himself. However, Jack Jr. outsmarted him; he waited until his father died, then took all the money and spent it like a fool. He married a woman, Marion, but she left him after they had their first baby, and Jack Jr. never came home for weeks on end. Like father like son. The baby Jack Jr. and Marion had was Fredrick. Fredrick was Girl’s grandfather. Fredrick never had a chance either; his mother lost heart after she left Jack Jr. It was like she had the strength to make that one stand, but then couldn’t find the courage or maybe the energy to carry on. Fredrick’s mother went from man to man, hoping to find someone to take care of them. Fredrick grew up and married Rosie in the 1950s. Fredrick turned out to be a religious man; he was the church musician and he held a tight rein over his wife. They were the perfect family in the perfect house and then they had Sheila. Sheila was a wild one and her mother let her do as she liked. When she was a teenager, Sheila decided she liked drugs, alcohol, boys, and — what did they call it in those years? Free passion?”

  “Free love,” I said.

  “Love? Really? Sheila was an alcoholic by the time she was a teenager, ended up on the streets, living here and there. She carried a pair of bongo drums around with her; she’d play on street corners and dance. Going from one bad man to another, she had Boy, and then there was Girl. There, that’s the family tree.”

  “And there was Girl.” I smiled.

  Gladys looked at me; her eyes still held the pain of her story.

  “I might seem like a lousy Sir Galahad, but I’ll get it figured out,” I said. “I’m going to make it right somehow.” She gazed steadily at me. I felt like I had in the career interview, like I just wasn’t getting it. “Stop looking at me like that. I really will fix it.” I started filling a box with the jars of paint. “I’d better get this up there before they send a search party out for me.”

  STORMY PETREL SIT-IN : DAY SEVEN

  On the afternoon of Day Seven, a representative of the government came and told us, through a bullhorn, that the Grainger chain had agreed to build a few blocks down on a site that held another obsolete government building.

  Girl and Mr. H. did a happy dance together and Lady March was about to disrobe when Norman came over, kissed her cheek, put his arm around her shoulder, and held her caftan on. I cheered until my voice was hoarse. So this was what it felt like to be on a winning team, to do something that mattered.

  One of the cameramen caught Whitman and Mr. H. in tears and embracing. “Thank you,” said Mr. H., patting Whitman’s back. “Your mother would have been proud.”

  “She’d be proud of both of us,” said Whitman. “You do good work. Remind me to send you a fruit basket.”

  Mr. H. looked stunned, then laughed. Whitman laughed too then wiped his eyes. “Get that thing off me,” he said to the cameraman. “Go film someone else.

  It was strange to be back at Mr. H.’s; everything seemed quiet and slow. The day after we returned, Mr. H. got a telephone call from the Historical Society letting him know that the house had been placed on their list. I decided I should have a celebratory dinner the next evening, something to mark what we’d all been through and to celebrate the saving of the Art Centre.

  I decided I’d try and cook an oriental supper. There was
a Chinese cookbook from the experimental cooking days; the pictures were so bright and pretty and the instructions seemed easy to follow. I decided on ginger beef, chicken with lychees, wonton soup, and rainbow fried vegetables. I called Miss Kesstle to see if she wanted to make dessert, but there was no one home. I headed off to try and find the proper ingredients for my dinner.

  On the way to the bus stop, I saw Whitman on Miss Kesstle’s front porch. I stood and watched him. He reached into his pocket, took something out, tore it apart, and put pieces of whatever it was all over the porch.

  What the hell? When he finished, he sat down on the steps. He glanced up, saw me, and grimaced.

  I walked over to him. “I’m not sure I want to know, but what are you hiding on Miss Kesstle’s porch?”

  “Nothing.”

  I raised my eyebrows and stared at him.

  “Wieners,” he said. “When do you think she’ll be back? How long does she usually shop?”

  “Wieners?”

  He nodded. “Don’t say anything, okay? I don’t want her to know it was me.”

  “Is this a Los Angeles game? Hide the Wiener? Miss Kesstle won’t be into it.”

  “No, it’s — where the hell is that guy?” He looked at his watch and then pulled out his cellphone. Just as he was dialing, the film van drove down the street and parked in front of Miss Kesstle’s.

  “About time,” he muttered and stood.

  I was utterly baffled. The man driving the van got out, went around to the back and opened the doors, and a small, curly-haired black and white dog jumped out. A small, curly-haired black and white dog with only three legs. It jumped and ran in circles around Whitman, licking his hands. You could hardly tell it was missing a leg. Whitman took hold of the leash and led the dog over. “What do you think?”

  “He’s a beauty.”

  “She.”

  The dog sat in front of me, wagging its tail. I petted it and it turned its head to lick my hand. “What happened to her?”

  “It belonged to a friend of a friend. A car hit it. The driver of the car took it to the vet’s. They saved it, but had to amputate its leg. They tried to find the owner, but no one claimed her. My friend’s friend can’t keep it; turns out his kids are allergic. I thought of Miss Kesstle. It seemed like the kind of animal she’d like, and I thought it might help with her fear of robbers.”