Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

  She decided to curb her hate by performing random kind acts. As she left the bar, she handed her diamond bracelet to the old bag lady that panhandled along the promenade outside of the bar. The old woman smiled at her, fastened the bracelet through a button hole in her blouse and asked if it was tin. She fed a stray German Shepherd in the parking lot her left over egg rolls that she had wrapped to take home. The dog jumped in her car so she decided to take her home. On her way back to her apartment, she stopped at the mini-market to buy some dog food and clove cigarettes when she saw a sweaty, drunken man in a wheel chair outside of the laundry mat next door sobbing in loud despairing wails. He had dropped his laundry and had no way of picking it up, his legs twisted limply between the peddles of his wheelchair. Barbey walked over to him, put his hard swollen legs back on the wheelchair peddles in their proper position, and placed his laundry on his lap. He stared at this stunning woman, dumbfounded, as if he had seen a supernatural being in his drunken stupor.

  When she arrived at her apartment which sat on the first floor of a two level building facing a small shoddy courtyard, a hollow-eyed sallow man, protruding from his t-shirt that was too small and too short to cover his large pot belly, was sitting as he often did directly in front of her apartment door waiting for her on a lounge chair that he had pulled over from the pool. He was drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. Barbey cringed when she saw him and hoped that he would become frightened by her new German Shepherd and move out of the way, but the dog didn’t seem to affect him. “Nice lookin’ pooch,” he said scratching his chest hairs with his hand under his t-shirt. “But, not as good lookin’ as you.”

  “Excuse me,” Barbey said uncomfortably. “Can you move out of the way so I can get in my door?” The dog appeared agitated, looking side to side and walking in circles.

  The man brushed his brown straggly hair out of his bloodshot eyes and stared into Barbey’s eyes, “Not until you give me a kiss, Hon,” he said winking.

  Barbey looked away, appalled by the man. All she could think about was how horrible and unfair her parents were for sending her out into the world without sufficient means of supporting herself as she had been accustomed. She was terrified to deal with intrusive men who acted without manners or boundaries and it pained her deeply to know that it would not have been the slightest financial burden for her parents to finance her living in a more expensive apartment with less overtly threatening people. She looked at this man with an expression of indignation and shock which propelled him further.

  “Come on honey. Don’t be such a prude.” He took a gulp of his beer and chuckled, apparently amused with himself.

  “I see you think this is all very funny hanging around my apartment every day, but I think you’re a real loser. So, why don’t you get the hell out of here before I call the police.” She was impressed with her boldness. A year ago, she would never have been able to stand up for herself like this.

  He stood up out of the lounge chair and replied in a low husky voice, “You’re real cute when you’re mad.” But then, he reached for her shoulder and she slapped his arm several times in a frenzied panic.

  “Don’t you ever touch me again, you freak! Get away from me!” She backed away from him several feet and surveyed the apartment complex to see if anyone else was around. Not thinking clearly, she wasn’t sure if she should run, if she should scream, or if she should force another insulting comment on him. The German Shepherd was sniffing around the courtyard nervously.

  “Look, I just wanted to talk with you is all. You don’t have to get crazy on me.” He came toward her and she moved out of the way as he walked past her, apparently heading back to his apartment across the street. “You need to chill out,” he said taking in another gulp of his beer and flicking his cigarette across the courtyard.

  She quickly unlocked her apartment and called the dog inside.

  Her apartment was located in the low income section of El Cajon with simply a small bathroom and one tiny room which she used for both the living space and the bedroom. There was no kitchen in the apartment, so she kept a small refrigerator, a microwave, a toaster oven, and a small portable burner in the room for cooking. The only furniture in the room was a brown corduroy pullout sofa that folded out into a bed, a small television, a VCR, and a stationary bicycle.

  She had decorated the walls with a couple movie posters—a Sex, Lies, and Videotape movie poster because Graham, the mysterious character played by James Spader, reminded her of Rave with his peculiar neurotic mannerisms and a movie poster from the film, Blue Velvet, because the film depicted a dark, creepy underworld just beneath the surface of a seemingly idealistic, pastoral suburban town which intrigued Barbey as she assumed that Rave must have experienced a sort of comparable dark, creepy terror which explained his sociopathic qualities of compulsive lying, deception, lack of guilt for wrong behaviors, and drug and alcohol addictions. Because she desperately wanted to understand every facet of Rave’s being, she indulged herself regularly with seedy films depicting disturbed characters. Seeing the posters every day made her feel connected to him in a sense.

  She put some water and dog food in a bowl on the floor, made some hot tea with milk, and put in the video, Drugstore Cowboy, so that she could gain more insights into Rave’s drug addictions. Shortly thereafter, it became difficult for her to concentrate on the movie though because the neighbors in the adjacent apartment started fighting again. They fought brutally at times. The pandemonium of glass shattering against the wall, yelling, crying, and pounding caused Barbey to tremble as it became so loud through the thin walls of her apartment that she had to insert her earplugs and try to force herself to go to sleep in the darkness of her mind, in the muffled sounds of chaos.

  Loneliness enveloped her as she lay wide eyed and awake, tormented by her fears. If I was a mother or father and had any money at all, she thought, I would never allow my daughter to live in this hell hole. I would want her to live with us, so we could protect her. I can’t believe Mama and Dad don’t even care enough to help me. She had tried to explain to them that it was not safe for her to live in this neighborhood being a single woman, but they told her that she was paranoid, plenty of women live alone, and that Mama had lived in an apartment for awhile as a child and she was just fine.

  Barbey argued that one young woman at the other end of her apartment complex was hit over the head and mugged the other night when she was walking from the complex parking lot to her apartment, but they said bad things happen to people wherever they live. Though Barbey considered that she ought to try to find a roommate through a newspaper add or from a community college billboard for safety purposes, after her experiences with Rave and John Prince, she had grown fearful of strangers in a general sense. She was afraid if she moved in with a roommate she didn’t know well, the roommate might prove to be more dangerous than had she chosen to live alone. Barbey felt distrustful and disconnected from all people and mostly kept to herself now.

  Her reality terrified her—living in this unsafe apartment was in such polar contrast to the luxurious home she had grown up in. In a sense, she felt guilty pitying herself and her living arrangements when she thought of all the people in the world who lived in worse conditions. Though her situation caused her to empathize with others in the same and worse situations, she found it unfathomable that her parents, in their great wealth and comfort, did not help her. She knew in that sense, they were mentally ill, but she could not pity them—at least not yet. If she ever had money, she told herself, she would help as many needy people as possible.

  But now, in the dark, with the dog beside her on the bed, she felt just slightly relieved enough to slip into the trance of midnight sleep.

  In the middle of the night she awoke in a sweat, screaming because she had been dreaming that John Prince was strangling Shira in a roller rink in front of all sorts of people, but nobody attempted to stop him. Her mother was gasping for air and foam was pouring from her mouth, but nobody came to help
her, nobody came to help her, nobody came to help her... After she died, a police officer shook John Prince’s hand and said, “Well done, son—it was for her own good. She had suffered such a sad, humiliating life and you put her out of her misery.” He handed him a first place blue ribbon and then gave him a Nazi salute.

  The dog put his head on Barbey’s arm and she felt slightly comforted. But then she thought she saw a shadow figure moving in her room. She lay still in her bed, hardly breathing.

  It had only been her imagination.

  45

  It was late at night as Barbey drove home from work, obsessing over Rave. The sky was light from the street lights reflecting off the spread of marshmallow cream clouds blanketing the sky above. The neon street signs flashed bright dynamic colors portraying the night in a Van Gogh dreamlike swirl which harmonized with her manic mind. She had to see him even if it meant that she would be too tired to go to school the next morning. Cars whisked by her flashing their brights and honking, “I hate you!”, as she drove slowly, taking up two lanes, gazing at the clouds above, the neon lights dancing and leaping in colored shadows across her pale, gaunt face. She felt guilty not letting her dog out to urinate right away, but rationalized that she had worked a short shift and Misty could wait another hour or two while she spied on Rave. Oh Rave, oh Rave… To see him would make her heart kick and flip in pure ecstasy. Oh, to have another chance with him!

  She parked down the street about a block from his house and walked in her long black overcoat with the hood up hiding the sides of her face. If by chance someone she knew drove past, she didn’t want anyone to recognize her. The street was dark with no street lights except for one corner lamp post that flickered high above the world and buzzed on and off as if it were gasping for its last phosphorescent breaths. All the houses were snoring in a REM state of consciousness. Their big square eyes closed with their picket fence arms folded peacefully against their green lawn chests. She could almost feel their deep heavy exhalations vibrating through the soles of her feet coming up through the sidewalk as she walked carefully along, rehearsing in her mind her plans for the night ahead.

  Tonight Barbey was going to confess her long concealed love to Rave. She decided she would simply knock on his door and when he answered, she would tell him, “I love you!” as matter of fact as that. She didn’t care anymore so much if he felt the same. That didn’t matter as much as releasing her feelings which had been slicing up her innards with every obsessive thought. If only she could release this amassing pain of confusion, vomit out the accumulation of inner blades that were piercing her membranes, causing her agony with every living breath. Then maybe she could be released of the gnawing mental anguish. No longer could she care about others’ perceptions of her as had enslaved her in the past when she was so very naive and pleasing. This enslavement had been a roller coaster ride replaced by her servitude and obsession with her god, Rave Robinson. The only thing that mattered in the world was Rave.

  When she got to the door of the guesthouse where he lived, she heard what sounded like John Prince talking behind the door. Her body tensed and for a moment she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to run and hide, but felt paralyzed like a deer just before it is hit on a dark road when it looks into the headlights and cannot move from the shock of the situation. Barbey then heard what sounded like Rave’s voice and the lyrical sound seemed to release her somewhat from her frozen state. Without conscious thought or premeditation, she found herself sneaking alongside the building toward the sliding glass doors. The curtains were fully shut, but the left side of the curtain had been pulled just slightly too far so she could see in through the crack.

  It was John Prince! His hair was thin and grey without the blonde wig that he had worn the last time she had seen him, but he was certainly John Prince. There was a Hispanic man in his late twenties or early thirties tied down on a table covered with newspaper. The man was shirtless, dressed in old jeans and cowboy boots and appeared to be unconscious. John Prince reached into the man’s flesh and pulled out what appeared to be a kidney. Barbey turned away, nauseated. When she looked back, she saw Rave open an ice chest and retrieve a plastic container. John Prince placed the kidney in the container and Rave put it in the ice chest. Barbey was shocked at what she was seeing.

  She looked back into the room and saw Parker Pennington coming from the bedroom dragging into the main room an unconscious young Hispanic woman whose body was wrapped in a sheet. Barbey covered her mouth, vomiting into her hand. Rave and John Prince lifted the man off of the table and laid him on the floor. They then hoisted the woman up onto the table.

  Barbey gasped, wiping the vomit from her mouth. She touched her own body just above her midsection where she had fallen on the glass slipper. Had there actually never been a “glass slipper”? Was the “glass slipper” simply a product of my imagination? What is reality? She could not deny reality any longer. The truth became apparent. John Prince, Rave, and Parker had raped her and stolen her kidney for profit. She had heard about this sort of thing on the news recently. Somehow she had already known that there never was a “glass slipper” and though she cut her hand on a piece of glass, the incision she had in her body was the result of something less romantic. The truth had been too unbearable to confront at the time. Consequently, she had chosen not to go to her own doctor after John Prince violated her because the truth or any further discovery would have been too much to bear. Now she could not deny it. The three of them had used and stolen her body for financial gain.

  46

  ***4 Years Later***

  She awoke, squinted her eyes and laid her hand against her forehead. The room was bare and white like her mind after having awakened to the morning light from a dream. Although the room was foreign to her, she was not afraid as there was something peaceful to the room that contented her. The curtains were drawn, filtering in a seemingly endless light which she could hardly care about, much less begin to fathom after a night of tequila shooters at the Tijuana club where she danced. She existed in time and space. This was for certain, but at the heart of her being there was an infinite melancholy that pervaded in whispers which were hardly audible, but nonetheless, ever present. The sadness comforted her because it was familiar.

  She had sent Rave, John Prince, and Parker to prison. This was accomplished through a mere anonymous phone call describing the scene of the crime and the location. The Mexican couple, now living with only one kidney each (as the kidneys were misplaced during transfer from the crime scene to the hospital) were given citizenship on account of the suffering these three men had inflicted upon them under the guise of smuggling them across the border to freedom. How many people had the trio violated, it could not be said. Aside from one other victim, Maria Lopez, a Mexican woman who had already obtained U.S. citizenship through marriage to a North American, no other victims came forward with accusations, likely for fear of deportation or due to the humiliation of victimization. Barbey assumed there had been many. Often, in the past she had wondered why they had targeted her specifically, as she did not match the type that they had violated. The others were Mexicans who were trying to escape an impoverished life, while she was an American, from a wealthy family. She did not fit the profile. Maybe they had victimized others of her type; she did not know.

  Eventually, she had given up wondering why Rave had pursued her romantically as he had. He could have easily enough raped her and taken her kidney without courting her. She assumed he had dated her merely to make Suzie jealous so that he could win her back. Why had he not pursued her sexually in their relationship as she would have surrendered willfully in time, would forever be a mystery to Barbey. Nothing about Rave made sense to her, but she could no longer care as his actions proved to have been utterly appalling and unforgivable.

  Had they planned to violate Sage as well? The intentions and motivations were unclear to Barbey, but she had grown tired of speculations. The past is the past, she often told herself as she pus
hed the thoughts from her mind and retrieved an anti-depressant pill from the cup of her sequined bra where she often taped an extra one in case she didn’t make it home by morning, as had more than occasionally been her experience. She swallowed it without water.

  When she stared at the wall, she desired no further consolation. In a sheer blur, a sheer abandonment of thought, she lay utterly motionless as the round plastic clock on the wall ticked in monotonous circulation. Her eyes closed in half-moons as she slipped into a half-sleep, eclipsing the sunlight that had formerly streamed in through the window. Her mind was dark for that moment. At once, she opened her lids, causing the moon to slide past the sun as she glanced at the clock. It was only a natural reaction as the laws of nature permit such phenomenon as normal though occasional. The time confused her, so she sat up, rubbed her eyes and gazed around the naked room, licking her chapped lips, and exhaling deeply, falling back onto the pillow. Now she was fully conscious, as conscious as her hangover would allow. In a moment, she would know where she was, she knew that the time was early morning, and that a young man had placed her in this single bed for the night. She couldn’t remember who the man was, though this did not agitate her, but only seemed to warm her clouded mind.