Doug Donnan

Doug Donnan
Doug Donnan

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Dime a Dance by Doug Donnan

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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