Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

  For Barbey, every social situation was like being on stage. All were opportunities for attention and recognition. Now, before her audience, Barbey tried to feel full and sure of herself, like a queen showgirl, as they passed by acquaintances, the dance music blasting. She pretended she was going to “His Highness Grand Duke Charles’” palace for the evening just as Elsie Marina had.

  The large upper-level room where they entered, which was where the majority of the customers gathered, included a long bar with a U-shaped white countertop about thirty feet from the entrance. At the back of the large room sat the high tables lining a dance floor. Set off on either sides of the dance floor were, on one side, a disc jockey box and on the other, a mechanical bull that posted an “out of order” sign on its horns.

  The lower-level room, which was accessible by descending a dark stairway strung with red hanging beads, was the more intimate and darker level of the club resembling a hellish pit—everything painted black and red with a small bar and a small black dance floor with huge red blocks used as platforms for drunk dancers.

  Barbey pulled Sage over to the corner next to a painting of a Spanish dancer in a red, flared skirt in the upper-level room. Grabbing her by the shoulders squarely, she looked her in the eyes as she yelled over the music, “Now remember to act confident no matter what.” Barbey glanced around anxiously to make sure no one else could hear her. “You know— think of yourself as super important like Cinderella on the night of her ball. Do you know what I mean?”

  Sage sighed in exasperation, “You act like going to a bar is as important as brain surgery or something!”

  Her eyes widened in protest. “Sage! Do you want to find true love or what?!”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Let’s pretend like El Figurado is our own personal palace,” she continued to yell over the music. “You know—remember when we were kids and we used to play Snow White and I made you be the wicked queen. Pretend you are her and this is your palace. That will, like, attract every hot guy in the club.”

  “Yeah right!” She rolled her eyes again, shaking her head.

  “I’m telling you it will. Believe me—I heard on TV that guys love that kind of confidence.”

  Sage sighed, but followed Barbey to the bar. Along the way, Barbey pretended to throw out greetings like gold coins to peasants who glanced at her from their social circles. The girls smiled, smirked, and whispered, while the guys stared with longing, lustful eyes. But Sage followed along beside heavy-footed with slouched shoulders wishing she had not agreed to come. “Stand up straight,” Barbey reprimanded. “And smile. Imagine you are looking in the magic mirror.”

  Sage laughed.

  “You want me to act like a dope when we go to that math competition?”

  Sage pushed her shoulders back in annoyance and frowned. She was not gregarious like Barbey. And being in crowds made her uneasy, causing her to yearn desperately to be at home where she could study for her summer school math exam on Monday or in the very least, play Scrabble with her parents.

  Suddenly, Barbey yelled into Sage’s ear, “Do you think those girls near the front entrance were making fun of me?”

  “Honestly…” Sage frowned, “…I don’t know.”

  “I thought I heard them laugh.” Letting the thought dissipate, she smiled flirtatiously at the tall pot-bellied bartender. “Hi Arturo.”

  “Señorita Barbey…” he gritted his teeth and smiled as he rubbed his black moustache, eyeing her up and down, “It’s been so much time when you be here. I miss you.”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet,” she smiled awkwardly, surprised that he remembered her. “Thanks so much.” She blushed and tried to get back into character. “Umm, umm, umm… I’ll take…hmm…” She put her finger to her lips and looked up at the ceiling playfully the way Marilyn does, “…a Tom Collins and my friend will take a Long Island iced tea.”

  “I didn’t say that’s what I wanted,” Sage interjected, wiping the lipstick off her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Barbey smiled at her, feigning an Elsie Marina giggle, “Ok, what would you like?”

  “Nothing.”

  She flashed a hurt look in her direction and turned away from the bartender. “Sage, you promised.” She knew that Sage was easily swayed by guilt.

  “Barbey…” her voice was stern, “…how many times do I have to tell you that I feel uncomfortable at bars.”

  “Ok, fine. Whatever.” Barbey was hurt. “You said you would act happy and now you’re being really annoying. You know how important this is for me and you just keep trying to ruin it.”

  Sage looked at her blankly.

  “It’s ruined because of you.” She felt her emotions inside sounding like an ambulance siren getting progressively louder and closer. “You think I can be happy and find true love when you are so miserable?”

  She didn’t respond. “This is just so stupid. You’re acting stupid. Why don’t you just be yourself instead of acting like some idiotic character from a movie?”

  The blood drew from Barbey’s face. Her mind felt all mixed up. She knew nobody would give her the time of day if she was herself and who was she anyway? “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sage.” Her body started to tremble. “This is fun, Sage. It is. The boys are cute and we can’t just be losers. Girls without boyfriends are sad and pathetic. What movie have you ever seen where the leading lady doesn’t have a man?”

  Sage shrugged. “Barbey…”

  “Tonight is the night. It is.” She looked at Sage with determination. “With all your complaints, all I can do is think about you and how unhappy you are.” The ambulance was weaving in and out of traffic now recklessly. “I can’t even concentrate on my character because you are ruining it!”

  “I shouldn’t have come—I’m sorry,” she looked at her apologetically with her drooping Labrador Retriever eyes as she pulled her car over to the side of the road to let the ambulance pass.

  “It’s too late!” she responded, not seeing the car as the ambulance hit it head-on, causing Barbey to run down the stairs through the streams of hanging red beads to the bathroom on the lower- level in tears.

  Sage followed and found Barbey in the dimly-lit red velvet bathroom alone crying in one of the stalls. She knocked on the metal door. “I’m so sorry, Barbey. Can I come in?”

  “No. Go away!”

  “I know I’ve been acting like a real jerk. And you’re right to be upset. I promise I’ll try to have a good time because I know this is important to you.” She waited outside the door, but Barbey didn’t open the stall. “I really am sorry.”

  Barbey didn’t respond.

  “Can I come in?”

  “I don’t know,” her voice quivered.

  “Please. I’ll be real nice and I’ll even act like the wicked queen if you want.”

  Barbey laughed.

  “Will you unlock the door?”

  She unlocked the door, but didn’t open it.

  Sage pushed the door open part-way and peeked her head in smiling at Barbey who was sitting on the closed toilet lid with a pile of toilet seat covers under her to protect her from germs.

  “I’m not so mad anymore. I guess I was acting like a moron.” Barbey looked up at Sage, pushed her blonde locks behind her ears and smiled facetiously, “So, now you’ll get drunk with me?”

  “I don’t know about that, but I will drink a drink with alcohol in it.”

  “Ok! Good enough for me.” She spun the roll of toilet paper, ripped off a bunch and blew her nose in it.

  “Come on,” Sage said. “Let’s get blitzed!”

  Barbey’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I’m just kidding. But, let’s go have some fun.”

  They decided to order drinks from the mini-bar in the lower-level room since they were already downstairs.

  “What you want?” A dark, buxom, middle-aged woman with round, full hips dressed in a tight red low-cut dress asked harshly. She pinned a black
curl that had fallen back into her full bun.

  Just then, Arturo, the bartender from upstairs, descended the stairs, yelling over the music in Spanish at the woman. The woman quickly left submissively through a curtain that led to a backroom.

  Arturo walked behind the bar, smiling at the girls, “I know what you want. I make you drinks.”

  Barbey and Sage smiled uncomfortably looking around at the black and red room that was nearly empty except for one young couple as it was still early in the night. The couple was licking each others’ tongues, which repulsed the girls, causing them to quickly turn away, feeling embarrassed and out of place.

  Arturo shook his head as he handed the girls their drinks. “Downstairs not for you chicas. That why I send mi hermosa away. She know she not to be at bar here.”

  The girls smiled nervously, paid him for the drinks, and thanked him. He walked through the back curtain and they could hear him, faintly over the music, yelling at his sister.

  Stirring her Long Island iced tea with a straw, Sage said, “I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Barbey. It’s just that I can’t imagine actually ever finding a boyfriend—let alone finding ‘true love.’ You know what I mean?”

  “I can’t hear you. You have to yell.” Barbey was looking around the room, wondering what it would be like to dance on top of one of the big red blocks with her soul mate while everyone else was dancing below.

  She cupped her hands over Barbey’s ear and spoken into it, “I can’t imagine ever finding a boyfriend.”

  Barbey turned to her. “You will, Sage. Believe me—you will and I’ll bet you anything you’ll marry your first boyfriend. Things are just normal like that for you—you’ll see.”

  Feeling slightly soothed by Barbey’s optimism, Sage made a deliberate decision to not be uptight. She was surprised that she actually began to gain confidence and to feel a little less irritated as she sipped the sweet drink. “This really does taste kind of like iced tea, but kind of sharp like turpentine.”

  “You never drank turpentine,” Barbey giggled, pleased that Sage was drinking with her.

  “Yeah, well, I figure this is what it tastes like. I should have tried this drink a long time ago. Though, I bet I’d like it better without the alcohol in it.”

  “Let’s go upstairs now—it’s so dead in here.”

  Carrying their drinks with them, they sat down on high thrones at one of the raised mahogany tables that lined the dance floor. The pulsating music vibrated off the walls, through the tables and into their glasses, rattling the ice cubes to the pounding beat “The Roof is on Fire,” by Rock Master Scott and The Dynamic Three. There was a disco ball suspended from the ceiling in the center of the dance floor that sprayed broken pieces of colors like shard glass rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds on the girls’ naked arms and legs and across their faces, pricking their skin with slight jabs and nicks, making them feel, feel, feel the music. Swarms of people rushed to the dance floor for this cherished song and joined in with the other dancers in unison throwing their hands above their heads, slicing the air up and down, like switching blades as they shouted the lyrics,

  Let’s make some noise (Ho)

  Let’s make some noise- come on

  The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

  (We don’t need no water, let the mother f***er burn)

  (Burn mother f***er, burn)

  They watched the dancers—Barbey, wiggling to the music while on her throne, becoming looser and freer with every drink.

  “Want to do something fun?” Barbey shouted over the music.

  “What?”

  “Imagine you are part of the song,” she suggested.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Pretend you are the drum beats or the lyrics or that low hum coming from the speakers. When you become a part of the music, something really strange happens,” she inhaled excitedly as she yelled over the music. “I can’t quite explain it. That’s what I do when I’m dancing on stage. It’s a great feeling. Try it.”

  Sage concentrated on the music.

  “I can see you’re starting to hear it.”

  As Sage gazed up at the round disco ball over the dance floor, her eyes glazed over. Contentment began trickling through her body.

  “Now choose a specific sound in the music.”

  “I can hear the static,” Sage yelled.

  “Perfect. Mentally jump into it. Forget everything else and merge into the static until you become the static.”

  Sage appeared lighter now, as if she were floating above her seat, a tiny static molecule suspended in bliss. Barbey became one with the pounding drum beats. Her head was moving back and forth to the rhythm, as if she was knocking at an ethereal door, making her way into another dimension.

  They felt they were getting closer and closer to the ultimate ecstasy of true love and bliss. “Look,” Barbey shouted above the music, as she pointed to the ceiling. Tilting their heads back, they saw metal pipes blowing smoke and then, powdered fool’s gold, sparkling and glorious, began trickling down upon them from the roof.

  The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

  (We don’t need no water, let the mother f***er burn)

  (Burn mother f***er, burn)

  The dance floor was filled with young bodies moving in unison, calling out, crying in passion the words of their redeemer. Barbey and Sage felt salvation moving and opening up to them, showering majestic plentitude upon them. Their time had finally come. Even Sage believed in it now.

  And that’s when it happened. A fight broke out in the bar and the mysterious guy from the dance contest flew headfirst like a shooting star into Barbey and Sage’s round table. Their drinks shot into the air, like rocket ships and then, shattered on the floor into a million pieces. They nearly fell out of their seats from the impact and were startled into a rift of confusion where galaxies collided and exploded into fire and ice.

  To Barbey’s surprise, Sage appeared emotional and overly concerned about this stranger on the floor and whether he was hurt or not. The guy who had socked him, Billy Travis, last year’s prom king, was behind them, screaming profanities and challenges at the mysterious guy, while some other guys from high school were holding him back. Billy Travis’ redheaded, angelic-faced girlfriend was crying and started to go toward the mysterious guy, but one of Billy’s friends grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

  Barbey and Sage both felt it at the same instant—love. They hadn’t expected it to be for the same guy, but that’s how it happened. Both girls’ feelings seemed to be beyond their control, whirling past them as if they were passengers on a turbo speed locomotive, watching their feelings rush by them, like landscape scenes that were in view and out of view, zipping with colors and intangibility in a matter of seconds. Maybe it was the hypnotic effects of the music or the fiery gold dust that poured down from above, Barbey couldn’t say, but whatever those feelings were, neither of them had ever felt them for any other. For Barbey, it was more intense than any cinematic love story she had ever seen. Her body was ablaze. It was as if she was being shocked with electrical impulses from a million directions at once, like she had left three dimensional space and was caught in the “Twilight Zone.”

  And that’s when the song came on, “Twilight Zone,” by Golden Earring. It was as if she had willed the song into existence because she could have sworn that the bullet had hit the bone. She didn’t know what to do with her fervent self, so she ran out onto the dance floor and started dancing like a maniac, forgetting all about Marilyn Monroe. She had never acted so crazy and free in her entire life. There was nobody else on the dance floor because they were all gathered around the mysterious guy, Sage, and Billy, hoping another fight would break out. It was just Barbey Bardot out there, dancing like a madwoman, her arms flying in the air, and she actually thought at one point that she might catch enough air and just fly away.