Doug Donnan
Executive
Editor/GTNW
goodtimesnewsweekly
donnan.doug@yahoo.com
*This is the
little poem that accompanies
the short story
titled... "Dime a Dance".
"Dime
a Dance"
by
Doug Donnan
You soon take a
long walk down ol' lonesome street,
You see all them
forlorn faces, no one do you greet.
You step on in the
big ballroom to purchase a dance,
You see some new
women, but don't give it a chance.
You notice a man
playin' songs from out of the past,
You look around
for Jenny then you spot her at last.
You present her
those silver coins just one at a time,
You pay and pray
she'll stay your precious partner...
One dance for a
dime.
One dance for a
dime.
"Dime
a Dance"
by
Doug Donnan
[
Midtown St. Louis, Missouri // Circa 1948 ]
"Whata ya' do
with all these damn dimes you get from me?" Mr. Grafton asked as he passed
over the little brown dog-eared,
paper tube to
Vincent.
"Well, if you
must know Mr. Grafton, and since you've been kind enough to sell and supply
them to me, I take them to the Mayfair
Hotel building
down on Broadway and Olive and use them to buy dances with a girl... the
'ladies' at the MayRose Ballroom there,"
Vincent replied as
he accepted the sleeve of dimes with one rather effeminate pink hand, and
saluted awkwardly at the brim
of his decidely
silly, dark gray pork-pie hat with the other. Vincent turned to leave, but
Grafton quickly interupted his depature.
"Dancin'
huh?" Grafton responded with a curious puppy-dog tilt of his wispy,
spider-web-like hair covered bulbous head.
"How long a
dance does a dime git ya with one of them... 'ladies' of yours Vincent?"
Grafton more or less challenged as he
tried to picture
what it might look like inside a 'recreation hall' of that sort, in 'that' neck
of the woods way off in downtown.
"About five
minutes or so I guess is what they allow you. There's a big black man at a
table with a silver pocket watch and a
prizefighter's
bell. He rings it with his ballpeen hammer when the times up. Sometimes we get
a little bit longer if he falls
asleep at his post
between the big phonograph and all those old seventy-eights he's got stacked
high as the Hindenburg
there at the metal
table up on the concert stage."
"Hells Bells,
you don't say? What kinda' music they play... fandangos n' such?"
"No
sir," from Vincent as he took a glance up at Grafton's moon-faced clock
behind the grocery counter. It was gettin on
towards five
o'clock. "Slow stuff mostly, some times a short fancy waltz or polka.
Mostly you get to hold the girl though.
It's real nice.
They always smell pretty good, lilac or beauty salon rose water and the
like."
Grafton folded his
stubby sleeveless arms across his white cotton aproned chest. "You got one
down there you like special?"
he tried with a
playful wink "One that you spend a lot of your time and dimes on...
hmm?"
Vincent noticeably
blushed crimson at this invasive query by the gnomish grocer. He hesitated
briefly, perhaps awkwardly, as
he mulled over his
potential response options.
Then...
"Jenny's the
gal I look for," he tried with a proud high chin and smile. "She's
the one for m--, she's the best... 'dancer' there.
She comes on to
duty around about five or so."
"Jenny huh?
She a real looker?" Grafton pressed with an intrusive lean over the glass
countertop as if it would be okay with
him if Vincent
just whispered his answer to him in trust and confidence.
"I have to go
now. My bus should be comin' along soon. I don't want to miss it. I like to be
one of the first inside. You know."
Vincent rotated
around sharply and made for the screen door up front.
"Sure, I know
what yer aft--, that is... I know what ya' mean," Grafton chortled
lightly, perhaps rudely, as Vincent made his
rapid retreat and
exit. "You just have yourself a good time down there at that ol'
'ballroom'. Try n' not be puttin' all of them
damn dimes in just
one yellow rose basket though this time Vincent. You had oughta' try spreadin'
yourself around a bit
more son. Your
little miss Jenny jist might get herself swept up by some other 'dancer' or
dapper dan gentleman caller one
fine day...
comprende vu?"
Vincent inwardly
cringed at this left handed advice and crass opinion by the obtrusive,
liliputian giggling green grocer Grafton.
He pushed out the
door and made off with hurried, impatient, excited shiny shoe steps for his
downtown bound municipal bus.
* * *
[ Approximately
5:00 p.m. ]
The Big Black man
slid open the ballroom's wood and multi-glass pane windowed entrance doors.
Vincent was standing there, a
rather pathetic
queue of one, but certainly both excited and apprehensive at the same time at
just the very possibility of seeing
his long, raven
haired heartthrob and ten cents a dance yellow rose partner... Jenny.
"Well, good
evening Mr. Vince," the man said respectfully, but somehow with just a
hint of gold-toothed, smiling melancholia.
"You're right
on time. You're our first patron... dancer-to-be that is," he quipped as
he accepted Vincent's one dollar bill entrance
fee with a
mime-like, Maitre-d type bow and sweep of the arm.
"Hi
Barney," Vincent replied as he walked by him into the polished wood floor
room as might Napoleon or Julius Caesar of days
past and long
forgotten. He held up a long stem, broken-neck, singular red thornless rose as
if it may be some exclusive type of
private gold club
key or penthouse pass. "Is she here tonight? Jenny?"
"She's off to
the lady's powder room," Barney answered with an owl-eyed look all around and about the empty outside
foyer and
lobby of the
hotel. He ducked back inside and almost put his massive, black muscular arm
around Vincent's coat hanger shoulders,
then, thought
better of it. "The other gals Belladonna, Maxie n' them are all over there
in them foldin' chairs though. You wanna
give one a them
ol' white wildcats a whirl out on this here dance floor Mr. Vincent... hmm?
Changin' up things once n' a while, in
dancin' or in
life, can do a body some powerful good... 'sometimes'."
"Thanks, but
no thanks Barney," Vincent replied as he looked off far down the dimly
lighted floorboards towards the lavatory
exit for men and
women. He removed his curly brimmed, saucer black hat and stepped off down the
dance floor with quiet, but
confident, neolyte
sole cat paw steps. "I'll just wait for my," he caught himself in
mid-embarassment. "I'll just go ahead and wait
for Jenny if you
please."
"That ain't
no problem at all Mr. Vince," Barney gave in with another have-it-your-way
gold capped smile. "I'll see if I can't play
ya a coupla' nice
n' slow tear-jerkers so's you can hold her close."
"Thank you
Barney. I would truly appreciate 'that'," Vincent smiled back at him.
* * *
[ Approximately 10
minutes later ]
A rather suspect
little intermittent parade of would be ten cent twirlers had happened in just
after Vincent had made his monomaniacal
entrance. The
assorted fat-bottomed 'Mayfair Wall Flowers' (as they referred to themselves)
waited on their flat bottomed folding chairs
as if they might
soon be called to testify in some ongoing criminal case or other. One by one
they were 'approached' by the sad, Sunday-
suited
petroleum-jelly pomaded patrons. Barney was in rare form as he was playing a
medley of drab, but droll 'hits' from some long
forgotten musical
era. He held his 'Time's Up' bell hammer high as if it were some royal scepter
or weapon to be respected and obeyed.
There was still no
Jenny.
And just then, as
Vincent was about to give up all hope and heart, she appeared, as might some
diaphanous dream or celestial alabaster
spirit, his love
and link to life itself... Jenny.
But, she was not
alone. He was close, far 'too' close for Vincent to bear or comprehend, arm
casually strapped atop her lovely swan-like
neck and
strapless, frilly red chiffon adorned shoulders. He was as handsome as some
proud and foppish feathered prince in an ornate,
golden framed
Rembrandt Renaissance painting.
The titilated
twosome were giggling to each other as they sashayed casually off and away down
the dance floor heading for the Ballroom's
sliding front exit
doors. Jenny hadn't seen Vincent nor did she bother to look around for him in
the dusky dim dancer's stary rotating light.
She was aloof and
indifferent to both his presence and his red prickless present. She couldn't
have cared less about him or his complete
dedication and
undying love for her and her alone.
His Jenny, the
very center of his whole universe and life was now leaving with this new
handsome, valiant prince... 'him'. Vincent was
far, far too
depressed as he languished there in the overwhelming heart of his grief to be
either hateful or spiteful at that exact moment.
It was finished...
over.
Off in the
distance Barney belted his bell. The music had stopped abruptly as had
Vincent's vacuous, forlorn heart. He dropped his sad red rose
into an open
mouthed trash can just there by the folding chairs that were once occupied by
the deadpan dancing parlorettes, those dedicated,
financially
strapped, and perhaps trapped, 'Wall Flower' faithful female few. Vincent all
but collapsed into one of the empty cold metal seats
just there at the
end of the row of lonely, vacant choosing chairs.
He was completely
devastated, as though his barely conscious self had just washed up, dying and
without purpose, on the very most remote
island shore of
dread and despair. He truly now felt, in his barely beating heart of hearts,
that there was no hope for him 'now' or ever again.
But, suddenly,
just then...
"Excuse me
sir, but is 'this' seat taken?" the young, pageboy-cut blonde woman asked
as she smiled down and pointed with pixie-like poise
and perfection at
the empty chair just next to the brooding ballroom bachelor, one Vincent
Ernesto Fallanari.
"What? No,
no," he replied almost rudely as he snapped out of his forlorn fog.
"There's plenty of other chairs along this wall though mam.
Why in the
hell--," he discontinued after looking directly up into the face of the
crystal blue, cow-eyed pixie. Vincent immediately thought
of some innocent
curious fawn as he stared at her, awkwardly, for what seemed to him like a
sunburst eternity. He quickly changed his tune
as did the
'almost' always observent Barney up on the stage. He had positioned an old
classic he had set aside. The Tennessee Waltz.
It was Vincent's
very favorite song. Barney's timing, unbeknownst to the now befuddled and
awestruck Vincent, couldn't have been
any better.
Vincent broke his undivided concentration away from the petite golden haired
Wall Flower for a split second and flashed a
look up at the
Jack-O-Lantern grinning, golden-eye-toothed 'go-ahead-and-ask-her' (nodding his
total approval) Barney.
"I mean
'hell-o' there miss,..." he jumped to his feet in embarrasment and
excitement. He performed a silly, but cute and respectful, little
gentlemanly bow as
he anxiously awaited her name.
"My name is
Alexis," she chirped back with a sincere, innocent smile that could very
easily have stopped 'any' city's downtown traffic
at rush hour.
"People just call me Alex mostly. I'm new here," she looked all
around and about for a second into the smokey vastness
of the decidedly
dreary, waxed-wood tiled auditorium. "As long as we're on names... what's
yours?" she asked this as though she had
just walked into
some high school dance or basketball game. Bold for a girl, but somehow
refreshing, Vincent decided.
"Vincent,"
said he simply with a smile and a touch of renewed vigor in life. He turned
slightly, and bent down to put his hat on his seat.
He wasn't
completely certain, at that point, just exactly why he dropped it down there.
"I'm pleased to meet you 'Miss'... Alexis."
They shook hands.
"Just Alex'll
be fine... Vinny," she chirped with a devastating Shirley Temple cuteness
and corresponding Black Beard the pirate little
impish wink.
"I got this outa' the trash can. I saw you drop it in there a minute
ago," she almost challenged as though she had just now
discovered some
clue into his sad and melancholy past life.
Vincent looked at
the drooping red rose as if he'd never seen
it before in his entire, 'previously', woebegone life. He might have been
either embarrassed
or amused, it was rather hard to tell. Alex, however, immediately sensed his
shocked surprise. She didn't miss a beat.
"My mama
showed me a little flower shop trick when I was teeny. She told me that if you
cut the long thorny stem away from a dying or
just about done in
rose, right up close to the pretty blooming flower, and put it in a bowl of
clean tap water with a little sugar mixed in, it
will last a long,
long time, maybe even into full glorious blossom... if you're lucky."
She presented it
back to him as though she were, 'perhaps' unknowingly, offering him his very
heart back... a chance at a new beginning.
"Will you
help me save it... Alex?" he asked as if he might faint and fall
right then and there waiting for her answer.
She looked up at
him, carefully, with those big blue bovine eyes. Then a snow white, trusting
smile. "We can do it 'together'... if you like."
Vincent's
welcome-mat, discarded heart, burst, almost exploded into a sunny green field
of happiness and hope at this offer from an angel.
He now presented
her his arm and a broad, tender smile that he had never known to exist in his
lonely life. He put the reviveable rose down
just atop his now
silly seated pork pie hat. Then Vincent gracefully leaned down to face her like
some royal prince courting his beautiful,
newly discovered
and heaven sent cherubic lady fair.
"Would you 'please'
honor me with this dance Alex?" he tried with a gallant smile of his
own as he held out his brown, dog-eared paper
roll of dimes.
" 'This' one
is all on me Vinny," she replied with a it-would-be-my-distinct-pleasure,
perfect princess-like pirouette and curtsy.
They strolled off
onto the creaking, indifferent, dimly lit dance floor, together, arm in arm,
giggling, totally engulfed and happy in the
heart-haunting,
melodious tune and tempo of... The beautiful Tennessee Waltz.
___ The End ___
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