herself to the frigid linoleum before the door. The gallop of her
heart was louder than the buzzing had ever been. She quivered
as she heard a distant splash, and clenched her eyes shut. The
light from the dock still burned through the blackness, and as the
minutes passed and the chill sank in, the relentless rhythm of the
rain soothed her like a lullaby.
Beth Cato hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes
and bakes cookies in a lair west of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares
the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-
obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham. She’s the
author of The Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy series from
Harper Voyager. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at
@BethCato.
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This brand new tale is Lou Antonelli’s 96th short fiction sale in
12 years and he dedicates it to Ralph K. Banks, who first told
him about going out into the country with his friends in rural
Texas as teens and dancing to the radio under the stars. Set in
the good ole days of the 1950s, this well told tale waxes nostalgic
about a boy, a girl, a dance, and a UFO encounter at …
T H E M I L K Y W A Y D A N C E H A L L
By Lou Antonelli
Light pollution.
We didn’t have any of it back then.
Heck, we were lucky to have lights. I was still in junior high
school when the REA ran electricity to the farms in Franklin
County.
When I was in high school, there really wasn’t anything for
teenagers to do there. Drive-in movies were popular, but we were
much too small to have one. The nearest was one county over, in
Mount Pleasant.
There was absolutely nothing in between the two cities.
There weren’t even any farms; the power company held the land
for the lignite underneath. So it was completely black, and boy,
did the stars shine at night.
There was this one farm-to-market road than ran through that
wilderness, between us and Mount Pleasant. Late at night, after
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all the adults thought us teenagers were in bed, a bunch of us
would sneak out there. It was the flattest stretch of road anyone
had ever seen—smooth as a glass dance floor. And that’s what
we used it for. Needless to there, there was never any traffic late
at night. We’d sneak out in our jalopies and hot rods and drive to
that flat and open stretch of what we called County line Road,
and park our cars along either side facing each other. Everyone
would shine their headlights on the road to light up our makeshift
“dance hall”.
Late at night we could pick up KWKH in Shreveport loud
and clear. Music was changing then, and we’d listen to Conway
Twitty, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Charlie Feathers belt
out rockabilly songs. There was also some new kid from
Mississippi named Presley getting air play.
It was almost like we were on another world, our little island
of light in a sea of darkness. What contributed to that impression
was to see the stars so bright above us, and how the Milky Way
crossed the sky like a shining arch.
My steady at the time was Charlene Redfern—or so I
thought. I’d just found out she was now going out with Dub
Mack. He was the quarterback on the football team. I was just
second string. Looking back, I think she used me to get to meet
Dub. I should have known Charlene was out of my league. I was
just a redneck farm boy, her daddy owned the only car dealership
in town.
Still it hurt.
That afternoon, outside after school, Connie walked up to
me. She looked across the books she held up against her chest.
“You going out dancing tonight?”
I started to say no, and then I looked at her and stopped.
Suddenly I was ashamed. I hadn’t realized it before, but Connie
was sweet on me—and I had ignored her.
I was ashamed because I knew it was because of my born
prejudice. Connie belonged to one of the few Mexican families
in town.
Consuela Zavala was short, and cute in a well-upholstered
sort of way. She looked a lot like Snow White—dark hair with
big black eyes.
“I want to,” I said, “but I don’t have a date.”
She smiled. “I’ll go with you,” she said.
“That’d be swell!”
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“Pick me at the corner from my house at 10:30.”
“Sounds great,” I said. She smiled over her books and turned
to walk away.
“Wow,” I thought to myself as I headed to the parking lot.
Along the way I popped into a five and dime store and bought
a candy bar. I stashed it in my jacket pocket.
*
I picked Connie up in my weather-beaten Ford Tudor and we
drove to County Line Road. We were one of the first cars out
there. I parked on the side and turned off my lights.
I was amazed to see that the Milky Way was shining so
brightly it reflected in the pavement. I stared, fascinated. Connie
didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but looked at the starshine
in wonder.
Finally she said, “It’s so beautiful. “
Just then I saw a flash in the rear view mirror. We both turned
to see a shooting star in the sky behind us.
Instead of disappearing across the sky like a shooting star
normally would, this one followed a path until it reached the
horizon. When I took a second look, I realized it hadn’t even
reached the horizon, but disappeared behind a low hill between
us and Mount Pleasant.
Now you have to remember that this was the 1950s and space
invader movies were all the rage. I started to get a creepy feeling
and wished more of my high school pals would show up. A
minute or so later the main caravan arrived.
Sure enough, Charlene was riding in Dub’s car. He drove a
brand new ‘56 Ford Crown Vic. His daddy the banker has bought
it for him from Charlene’s father.
Everyone parked and kept their headlights on. Dub parked
directly across me and I could see Charlene glaring at Connie
through the windshield. Dub wrapped an arm around her
shoulder.
Connie squeezed my hand.
“I’m sorry, Don,” she said. “Charlene is stuck-up. You can
dance with me tonight.”
The car radios were coming on and Connie took my hand.
“Come on, let’s dance a little, and show them we can have
fun, too.”
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We all began to dance in the road. I quickly forgot about
Charlene.
Now, most of the songs on the radio that night were good old
Rockabilly tunes, but suddenly KWKH played the Number One
song on the Billboard—which happened to be one of those sad
“teenager in love” songs. The slow ballad brought the dancing to
a screeching halt.
When Dub let go of Charlene, she looked down the road at
us and began to head in our direction. Connie looked like she
didn’t appreciate Charlene coming to barge in.
Charlene walked up to me.
“You think you can pretend I don’t exist,” she said raising
her voice.
“Listen Missy, you’re the one who decided to go out with
someone else without even telling me,” I said.
“I don’t think you know what you had,” said Charlene.
“Yeah, a girl who didn’t appreciate him,” said Connie. “Go
back on down the road and dance with your rich daddy’s boy.
And leave us alone.”
“Why you little hussy spic …”
I automatically raised my hand. Another came up from below
and grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Connie. “They can have each other.”
Charlene turned around and walked away. When she reached
Dub, she turned around and glared at me as Dub wrapped his arm
around her waist and took her to his car.
“Her nose is so high she’d drown in a rainstorm,” said
Connie.
“She shouldn’t call you names.”
She took my hand. “Let’s go to the car and cool off. Forget
about it.”
I turned down the volume of my car radio as we got in. That
slow song by George Hamilton IV came to an end. “That song
about “A Rose and a Baby Ruth” sure put the quietus on the
dancing,” I said.
Connie chuckled. “It’s a nice song, but you sure can’t dance
to it,” she said. Then she got thoughtful.
“You know, it’s a song about a boy who’s sorry about getting
in an argument with his girl, and wants to make up,” she said.
“But all he can afford is one rose, and a candy bar.”
She smiled. “He’s poor folks, like us.”
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Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
The sky was so dark and the Milky Way so bright that as I
looked into Connie’s big dark eyes I could actually see the
archway of stars reflected in them.
Slowly, one by one the car headlights and radios began to
turn off.
Connie looked at me. I didn’t what I should do next. Then I
had an idea.
Because of my old car’s musty smell, I had an air freshener
stuck on the dashboard. It was a little glass vase with a fake cloth
rose, soaked in some sweet-smelling liquid. I also remembered I
still had in a pocket of my jacket hanging on the back of my seat
the candy bar I picked up that afternoon after school.
I pried the air freshener from the dashboard and reached for
the candy bar. Connie looked at me a bit puzzled.
“I want to give you something.” I handed her the rose and the
Baby Ruth. “I’m just a poor farm boy and that’s all I have for
you tonight.”
She giggled. “You’re a goofball,” she said. “But a sweet
goofball. That song is about a boy who’s trying to make up with
a girl he had a fight with. You should give these to Charlene.”
“The only thing I want to give Charlene is a swift kick in the
rear.”
We both laughed.
When we stopped, I looked at her and she looked at me.
Suddenly, we heard the car engines around us start up.
Headlights began to come on. Connie looked up the road.
“Dang,” she said, “there’s red and blue lights coming, it’s the
Sheriff!”
Now, one advantage of being a farm boy is that I knew this
road from whenever we went to market in Mount Pleasant. So I
pulled out and floored it.
“Please be careful,” said Connie as she clutched the edges of
the seat.
What I hadn’t counted on was that some jalopy had spilled a
crankcase of oil on the road ahead of us. I barely saw the slick
before I hit it. My car spun around and we went off the road and
flew through the air.
Back then, there were no seatbelts and there were no airbags,
and when we landed, we landed hard.
*
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When I came to, I was lying in mud and reeds alongside a
stock pond. I wiped blood and mud from my face with a sleeve,
and looked over to see the smashed car. I had a glow-in-the-dark
watch, so I looked at the dial. It said 3 a.m., so I been out for
hours,
I had a sharp pain in my chest that hurt when I breathed. I
stood up in the mud and realized it had broken my landing when
I flew out the car window.
I realized we were so far off the road nobody could see us. I
couldn’t see the road, the stock pond was in a hollow.
Then I thought of Connie. I went over to the car, and looked
inside. It was lying upside down, and she was on the inside of the
roof. The bloody foam running from her nostrils told me she was
still alive but barely.
Remember, this was 1956—there were no paramedics, no
EMTs, no emergency rooms. Ambulances came to take you to
the funeral home—which was where Connie would be going. I
began to bang my fists on the side of the wrecked car.
“Dammit, dammit the first girl who’s ever been nice to me,
and I’ve got her killed.”
I just didn’t cry, I wailed. My heart absolutely broke. And in
the dark in the middle of nowhere someone—or something—
heard me.
Even though my eyes were full of tears I could still see those
brilliant stars in the Milky Way. Suddenly a black cloud appeared
among them. I heard a low whistling kind of sound, and I realized
that something was coming down from the sky towards me. I
wiped my eyes and saw an outline of soft lights. It set down
alongside the stock pond. I thought I was hallucinating, but I
noticed the lights were reflected in the water.
I began to get very lightheaded. Whatever it was that came
up to me had some way keep me from looking directly at it. I
looked at the ground and pointed to the car.
“Help her please, please help her. I did this. I’m so sorry.”
A voice came on in my head like a drive-in radio speaker.
“We can heal her, but we must go. She must go. With us.”
“It doesn’t matter, she’ll die anyway,” I said out loud. “Please
save her life.”
Then I thought: “We are not dumb animals, she doesn’t
deserve to die like this.”
My chest hurt, and I realized I had been injured more
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Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
seriously than I thought. I began to pass out, but as I did the voice
came in my head:
“You do not need us, you will not die. We will save her.”
As I blacked out I heard the sound of screeching metal as if
the car door was being forced open.
*
When I woke up, I was in the hospital in Mount Pleasant. My
parents were there. My mother so relieved to see me awake she
started to cry. My father look stern, but I could tell he was also
relieved to see me awake.
as he tipped his cigarette into an ashtray. “You are a very lucky
young man,” he said. “You have a mild concussion, and three
broken ribs. You’ve been out for over 24 hours.”
“Connie was with me,” I rasped. “Is she okay?” I was afraid
of the answer.
“You’re lucky we found you at all,” said my father. “You
were so far off the road.”
I had noticed a sheriff’s deputy sitting in the corner. He came
over to the bed.
“Connie must’ve been ejected, like you, when your car
crashed. But we still haven’t found her.”
“The last time I saw Connie,” I said. “She was lying in the
car.”
“They didn’t find anybody in the car,” said the deputy.
My father glared at me. “You got that poor girl killed,” he
said.
I began to cry.
“Stop it,” said my mother to my father. “Hasn’t he been hurt
enough?”
They didn’t realize the reason I was crying was because I was
happy there was hope that someone, anyone, whoever had been
out there in the dark had taken Connie away to save her.
*
Of course I recovered or I wouldn’t be here talking to you
today, officer. I appreciate you coming over and sharing these
pictures with me. I didn’t realize that the church across the street
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has cameras in its parking lot that show the front of my house.
Now that I’ve seen them, I’m sorry that I wasn’t here when
whoever it was broke into the house. You see, officer, I’ve lived
here all my life. Of course my parents passed a long time ago,
and so did my wife a few years back. My children have all grown
up and moved away.
Back in 1956, this house was pretty much the only one on
this road. All the other houses around here have been built since
then. I appreciate that my neighbors noticed someone breaking
in and called 911. I know you’re staring at me, puzzled why I
told you the story about that night when I went out dancing with
Connie, and the other kids, in our Milky Way dance hall. But you
see, although the photos are taken from far away, I recognize the
person busting in the front door.
It looks like she’s still short and cute, from what I can tell. I
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