Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

  Rave and Sage were involved in a conversation for sometime before Barbey blurted out to Rave, “Were you that kid that, like, had his picture on all those milk cartons in the early eighties?”

  His cool exterior dissolved and he looked like a scared child. “How…how did you know that?” Seemingly broken and naked, his entire appearance changed.

  “I remember breakfasts with this cute bright-eyed boy with black glossy hair,” Barbey said. “Every morning I would eat my Captain Crunch while staring at a picture of this smiling kid on the back of the milk carton. I was, like, so terrified of that picture and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I remember I wanted to save you and was so haunted by the thought that I too could be kidnapped by some wacko maniac and have my picture on some milk carton in everyone’s homes.”

  Rave took a few quick swigs of his beer. The blood seemed drawn from his face and beads of sweat were forming above his lip. “I guess…I guess that’s my claim to fame,” he said trying to appear unaffected. “I’m surprised you…you recognized me.”

  “I couldn’t forget you. Honestly, you really haunted my childhood. I used to wake up at nights in a heavy sweat, screaming for you. But…” she turned away, pondering a thought, uncomfortably. “Now that I remember back…” She looked at him curiously. “That kid on the carton had a different name—I think. Did you change your name?”

  “You were kidnapped?” Sage asked, astonished.

  Rave shifted in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Uh, yeah, I suppose I was,” he responded with a nervous short laugh. “Hey, I gotta take care of something. I’ll…I’ll be right back.” He walked over to the bar and whispered something to the bartender. Then he walked down the stairs through the red streams of beads into the lower bar.

  When he rose up from the stairs, he was bouncing to the beat of some song in his head other than the music the disc jockey was playing. He then walked over to another table and conversed with another guy. Finally, he walked back over to Barbey and Sage and said, “You…you girls want to get something…something to eat with me and my friend?”

  “Sure,” Sage said quickly.

  Parker Pennington was of medium height and thin build with blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair with fair skin. He was exuberant and playful, full of life and mischievous as a monkey. Although he was attractive, it was his personality that made him so, not his physical appearance. There wasn’t anything physically wrong with his looks—he was handsome, but not striking like Rave.

  When Rave acquainted Parker to the girls, he presented only Sage. Instead of introducing Barbey, he smiled wryly at her and whispered into her ear, “And this is my girl.” Her heart jumped out of her chest and back in again. Immediately after introductions, Parker began pulling at Sage’s hair like a love sick boy on the school playground. Sage was pushing his hand away feigning indignation, but inwardly she enjoyed the attention.

  “I know who you are,” Sage said to Parker. “You were the drummer for Poker Face last year. I saw you open for Air Supply at San Diego State last March.” Sage tapped Barbey’s shoulder. “Remember that spastic drummer, Barbey? The one that was jumping on top of the speakers and on everything else, tapping his drumsticks on all the band members’ heads?”

  Parker’s head seemed to swell and he apparently became more confident because he swiftly pulled Sage into a dip and kissed her hard on the lips. Sage was disheveled and shocked. She didn’t know what to do and was too stunned to say anything. She laughed uncomfortably for a second and then felt violated, but didn’t object because she didn’t want to hurt Parker’s feelings or make a scene in the bar.

  ****

  Once out on Revolution Avenue, Barbey felt comforted that she and Sage didn’t have to walk the strip alone. Now that they were with boys, she felt they would be less vulnerable to predators. Barbey observed a difference in Rave now that he was with his friend. They seemed to have inside jokes and secret codes between them. Parker seemed to be the leader of the two and the inventor or implementer of the repetitive phrases between them. Sometimes the phrases were from popular movies or television shows and sometimes they were Parker’s inventions. They would yell out, “‘Gumby damn it!’” which they explained to Sage after she asked, that it was a phrase from the television show, “Saturday Night Live.” Often when one would say something, the other would say in an exaggerated, drawn out, low pitched voice, “Outstaaaaaaaanding!” and they would both laugh as if this phrase was the funniest thing in the world.

  Parker bounced around, jumping in the air trying to hit the awnings of the open store fronts. He picked up a little girl on the street who was selling yarn bracelets and put her on his shoulders as he spun around in circles. When he set her down, she was crying, so he bought a raggedy bracelet from her and gave it to Sage.

  Although Rave and Parker were alike in their playful banter, they were very different. Parker was giddy and playful, while Rave was hidden and dark. They both seemed to possess an underlying confusion and destructiveness, but Rave was more complicated and mysterious. Rave seemed to use Parker’s lightness as a distraction from his inner turmoil. It was as if Rave was ashamed or disgusted with himself while at the same time exuding arrogance and feelings of grandeur. This was all very subtle as was his way.

  The restaurant was a dark, little dive just off the main street with only three tables, a cash register, a food counter, a help-yourself refrigerator and a small open kitchen. Aside from the cook and the waiter, they were the only people in the restaurant. They took the middle table against the wall which was dimly lit by oil candles. Barbey and Sage sat on one side of the table, while Rave and Parker sat on the other.

  Rave tilted his head to the side and stared at Barbey unwaveringly for a minute. It was as if they were the only people in the world. As he stared at her, Barbey felt like she was being pumped intravenously with his warm, thick blood. It was as if their bodies were connected with an invisible cord and he was filling her with his blood. This connection felt inevitable and she felt like the blood was flowing through her and back through him like they were the ancient, blood-red Nile of Egypt and there was no separation between them. Just as the red waters flowed together as one, so did they. They were each others’ life force—they were the blood of the earth—a connection made by God.

  “Let’s get some drinks from the fridge,” Rave finally said as he got up from the table, motioning to Barbey. The rhythm and tone of his voice was low and smooth like a lullaby. Barbey got up and he led her to the glass refrigerator in the front of the restaurant that was stocked with beers and sodas. She felt like he was leading her to a mystical realm. Standing before the refrigerator, she looked at him in awe as he ran his moon ring across the beer bottles on the shelves the way an angel strums a harp. The music of the bottles clanked and chimed in her heart like sacred music and she knew her life had forever changed. She looked back at Sage who was looking across the restaurant at her with jealousy in her eyes and she didn’t care. She couldn’t care—Rave was too much to give up. While her blood connection to Sage and the doe was self-created, her blood connection with Rave appeared to have been created by something far greater and more powerful than animal or human.

  “Shhh,” Rave whispered as he tapped his index finger against her lips. Her knees weakened and she wondered why he was quieting her. Rave looked over his shoulder at the waiter who was standing behind the counter, arguing with the cook in Spanish. He then slid two bottles of beer into the inner pocket of his coat and shoved two more bottles in the waist of his jeans and looked at Barbey with a cool smile. As he shut the refrigerator, he tapped the glass door three times with his moon ring and looked at Parker who had his back to him. Rave tapped his ring against the glass another three times and then Parker jerked his back straight up in the seat and said to Sage, “Play along.”

  “What?” Sage asked perplexed.

  “Pretend like your sick,” he said anxiously. “Just play along. Put your head down on the ta
ble and hold your stomach. You’ll see—we have a surprise. Will you do it?” He looked at Sage pleadingly.

  “Fine,” Sage said irritated as she laid her forehead down on the table.

  “Hey dude,” Parker yelled over to Rave, “This girl is gonna blow. We better get her out of here before she barfs all over this place.” He got out of his seat. “She’s real sick.” He grabbed onto Sage and pulled her up from her seat and picked her up in his arms.

  “I’m not going to throw up,” Sage yelled at Parker and struggled to get out of his arms.

  “She’s always doing this, dude.” He looked over at the waiter and said, “¡Esta enferma! She’s gonna throw up all over this place.”

  Sage broke out of Parker’s arms and slapped him across the face as she screamed, “I’m not sick, you jerk.”

  The waiter started yelling in Spanish and waving and shaking his hands in the air shoeing them out of the restaurant.

  Parker said to the waiter, “I’m sorry, dude. She’s always pretending she’s not sick because she’s embarrassed and then she just blows corn and hot dogs all over the place.” The waiter pushed them toward the door and they left the restaurant.

  When they were out of the restaurant and around the corner, Parker ran ahead and bought a red rose from a man dressed in a mariachi outfit. He ran back, got down on his knee and said gently to Sage, “I’m sorry,” as he handed her the rose. Sage grabbed it out of his hand and protested, “You can’t just do stuff like that. Why’d you do that?”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I saw that there were cockroaches on the floor and I didn’t want you to eat the food and get pissed at me for taking you to such a dive, so I wanted to get you out of that place. I should have just told you, but I was embarrassed.”

  Sage weakened to his explanation and responded, “Next time you should just tell me. Don’t make a big scene like that. It’s no big deal. I’ll understand whatever it is.”

  Parker looked at her softly, “I just want to make you happy.”

  Rave knocked Parker on the head and said, “Dude, get off the ground. You’re…you’re acting like a dope.”

  “Leave him alone,” Sage snapped at Rave in Parker’s defense. And from that moment on Sage was in love with Parker.

  “I’m sick of Mexico,” Rave said. “Let’s…let’s quit this game and…and head back to the good…good ol’ U.S. of A.?” Rave turned to Barbey, “What do you say? We’ll give you a lift to your car. You parked on the American side right?”

  “Yeah, we did,” Barbey responded, fluffing her hair in an attempt to hint at her Elsie Marina character. “Didn’t you?” She fluttered her eye lashes and giggled.

  Rave appeared perplexed by her sudden change in personality. “Nah, we parked right there…” Rave pointed at the parking lot just ahead, “…at Woolworths. We’ll give you a lift across the…the border and then we’ll…we’ll drink these brewskis.”

  Barbey whispered to Sage and Sage said, “Sure, we’ll go with you guys.”

  When they got to Parker’s station wagon, Parker opened the doors without the key. “Don’t you lock your car?” Sage asked in an astounded tone.

  “No,” Parker replied. “There’s nothing to steal in this old thing.”

  Rave tucked the beers that he had stolen in a secret compartment under the carpet in the trunk of the station wagon. When they got to the border, they only had to wait fifteen minutes to get to the crossing point because the line of cars crossing over into the states wasn’t too long. It was only 11:30 P.M. and most people didn’t leave the bars until around 1:00 or 2:00 A.M. Parker bought Sage a ceramic vase for her rose from a side vendor that came up to the car while they were waiting to cross. With each gift, Sage seemed to attach herself more and more to Parker.

  10

  When they got to the border check, the U.S. officer asked what country they were from and if they were bringing in any souvenirs. Sage held up her rose and vase proudly. The officer shined his flashlight in the back seat where Barbey and Rave were sitting. Then he looked quickly in the trunk and signaled them across the border. Once they were on the American side, Barbey felt pounding under her seat. “What the heck is that?” she shrieked. “Did you feel that?” she said to Rave.

  The pounding stopped. “Oh, that?” Rave said. “Yeah, I felt that,” he laughed a little uncomfortably.

  “What was that?” Barbey demanded.

  Parker interrupted, “Where’d you girls park?”

  “We parked in the lot to the right on the hill,” Barbey said with irritation. “That pounding stopped. What was that?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Parker said. “I need to get something at the mini-market, so how about I drop the three of you off and you all meet me at Mission Beach in front of the roller coaster and we’ll drink some beers on the sand.”

  “I’ll go with you to the mini-market,” Sage said.

  “No, I gotta call my mom from the pay phone there and it’s embarrassing if you hear me talking all corny to my mom. I’ll just meet you at the beach afterwards.”

  “There it is again,” Barbey said, “I feel something pounding under the seat. Turn down the music. There’s something under us!” Barbey started screaming, “Stop the car. Stop the car!” She stood up from the seat and crawled into the front of the car and was facing Rave who was still sitting in the back seat. “Get up, Rave. There’s something under the seat.”

  “It’s nothing,” Parker said. “Show me where you parked your car.”

  Barbey pointed, “It’s that white and pink Jeep. Stop the car.”

  Parker stopped in front of the Jeep and said in a feminine mocking voice, “Pretty car—I must get one myself.” He flicked his hand at the wrist. “Ok, everybody out. I’ll meet you in a few. Pretty, pretty.”

  Sage got out of the car and was already unlocking the door to the Jeep, but Barbey refused to get out. “The back seat is lifting up and down under Rave,” Barbey said. “There’s something under it. Turn off the music.” She tried to turn off the music, but Parker stopped her.

  “No,” Parker said, “I love this song! It’s as pretty as your Jeep!”

  “Let’s go,” Rave said to Barbey as he got out of the car.

  Then the back seat flipped up and a Mexican man lifted his body from under the seat. He was cursing in Spanish and Barbey was screaming as she scrambled out of the car. Parker started cursing at the man in Spanish and the man laid back down, pulling the seat back over him. “I’ll meet you guys at the beach,” Parker yelled, as he sped away.

  Barbey was shaking and crying, but Sage hadn’t seen any of it because she was already in the car waiting. “What just happened?” she cried to Rave. “Tell me what the heck just happened!”

  Rave looked at her gently and whispered, “It’s ok.”

  “Who was that?” she demanded. “Do you, like, even know?”

  “That was…was Pablo,” he said matter-of-factly, pronouncing the name with a Mexican accent.

  “Pablo! Who is Pablo? And why was he under the seat?”

  “Pablo is Parker’s friend and he… he needed to get to the U.S. so… so that he can make some money to send home to his… his starving family.”

  “He smuggled an illegal over the border without even telling us?” Barbey implored.

  “He… he didn’t want to scare you, so he figured… he figured it would be better to not say anything.”

  “You should have told me. I would have understood. Instead you, like, scared the heck out of me.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know… I didn’t know myself at first, but then…then when the pounding started, I figured it out.”