The Dancing Woman by Bradley J. Collins

She’s in the middle of the street – a blur, a twirl, of color, this woman with a boombox. She’s not safe behind barricades or idling in a car as the rest of us are. She wears no coat, no makeup, shielded only by her floral dress.

You’re strumming a guitar that doesn’t exist, drumming your fingers on the steering wheel, echoes of your past trying to breathe. Cold sweat forms a river down your back.

Barefoot, she spins on the asphalt, dancing to a song you cannot hear. But you have to. A great song could fix everything broken inside. Remember when you heard Farewell Transmission thefirst time? Playing on your CD Walkman, headphones pressed against your ears. At your mother’s apartment, blocking out the sound of her screaming at some biker she’d brought home.

You weren’t in your body. For seven wondrous minutes, you were rhythm, a voice howling into the abyss. Back then, you spent the night working out the chords until your fingers buzzed.  

You tap your foot in 4/4 without even meaning to. Did you sell the guitar when you took the bar exam? Did you wait until the firm hired you to give up on music? You can’t recall. A part of you was stripped out, not by fate, or by some impish god in the shadows, but by your own choices.  

High beams cut through the night, reminders of the office life you’ve chosen – fluorescent lights, and quiet desperation as you stare at stacks of case files. Better than sleeping in the band van, you told yourself, better than Mom taking fifty bucks a gig, and sobbing when the rent came due.

You roll down the windows. No fresh air swirls, only the rotting stench from a garbage truck. The odor drags you backward in time.

Mom sang in dive bars, mostly Loretta and Dolly. Sometimes she’d play The Allman Brothers or Neil Young. Everyone hollered when Mom sang Whipping Post. Sometimes she’d drag you along. You’d break your back lugging gear in. Then you couldn’t stay because you were too young. You’d stand in the alleys, assaulted by the fetid scent of dumpsters in full bloom. You’d play along, even though no one could hear your voice.

Most often, she didn’t bring you, and you lived in the apartment alone. You’d lie on your bed, windows open, listening to the wind in the trees, a hush, like the tide rolling in. Dread, a blade to your belly, as you counted Mom’s empty vodka bottles, wondering if she’d come home.

Is this woman delirious, or tuned into something pure? What song could drive a person to become a lithe spiral of muscles in the midst of beeping cars and rumbling semis? It has to be a dance song. Earth, Wind, and Fire, maybe. She’d be the right age for 1970s music. Something with a pulse. She’d hear slop like Disco Duck, and her crooked mouth would open. Curse words would spill into a pile atop the weeds. A thousand weeds in the median, living in the cracks. She holds a cardboard sign – Need Food. She’s living in the cracks, too. 

Listen. No song plays from the boombox at her feet, which is so much sadder. You’re sobbing because there is no music, only her dirty face. With her eyelids slammed shut, she spins, bone-thin arms carving through darkness.

You pull over and stop. Dodging a swarm of thrumming engines, horns honking, you’re running now, your heartbeat matches the cadence of the hazard lights.

Tell yourself she doesn’t look like your mother, but your voice shatters on the lie. They could be twins, both weathered, gaunt.

So many wrinkles, and white hair, a mane, a cascade, to her feet it flows in ripples and waves. The wind loves the threads of it, seems to whisper just to her. Look how those strands awaken and ride invisible tides.

You’re approaching the woman, taking slow steps. Ten feet away, now five. She watches you as a wild horse might – coiled, ready to bolt if the wind shifts.

Can I buy you food? Can I take you somewhere safe? Questions a good person would ask.

“What song is playing in your head?” you ask.

Her eyes open. Dark blue, endless, the ocean, the deepest parts, where light dies in the jaws of infinite pressure.

There is no light, not a shimmer in this woman’s gaze; she is empty. You see the same void staring into the mirror every morning. Get a job you love, get a fuller life, the void says. You always think, maybe tomorrow I’ll figure out what I love and do that. But you’re still doing the boring job you thought was only a stepping stone to something that mattered.

You still have the pamphlet folded in your wallet. Prestigious Legal Careers. Your college advisor’s handwriting looped like ivy across the back. You’ll be a great lawyer. You believed him.

He seemed successful, someone who didn’t grow up on ramen noodles and who had no idea how to chew around the mold in their bread.

Remember when Mom left for days? You’d sing into the empty pantry, let your voice resound, and quiet the ache in your belly.

“Harvest Moon by Neil Young,” she says.

“Great song. I gave up guitar after law school…I don’t know why I told you that.”

She smiles. “I dance for people like you. People who need to see something beautiful.”

Back in your car, unsure how you got there. You look up guitars on eBay. You’re trying to remember the feel of hitting a perfect chord. Would you smile? Would you be free, even for a moment?

A Fender Stratocaster, used but beautiful, waits in your digital cart. Your thumb shakes as you press the buy it now button.

The woman fades into the moonlight.

 “I want…” Your voice cracks, unsteady, then the notes are perfect. “I want to see you dance again.”

Bradley J. Collins

Image: A flight of musical notes emanating from a guitar. From pixabay.com