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Decision Point (ARC)

Page 26

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt


  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

  Decision Points

  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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  Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  “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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  Decision Points

  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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  Decision Points

  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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  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.
r />   The doctor stood by my bed, and picked up my patient chart

  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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  Decision Points

  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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