Arches
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:35 pmArches: , a monologue. Published Avant Anthology 2008
---
Nobody mentioned the star, her costume fanning on the floor and lipstick bleeding down her chin. Nobody said a word as the stage call sounded, nobody knew, really. She was sixteen, pretty with those pouted lips, and a body like glass. If a girl were a drink, she’d be mine. She was never anybody’s. Everybody wanted to be her business. The stage hands hassled her with notes, sometimes chocolate gifts’ little silver trinkets that they probably stole from their girlfriends, wives, mothers, and they woke her up in the night with their knocks. I did the lightening in that show, crouched in the eaves, watching the peacock feathers blur; watching the audience, drunk with anticipation and excitement; watching her, dance and dance and dance.
My Father always said a girl had to have good feet, good arches. I remember him telling me as he showed me how to light up the stage and how, in some ways each girl was our bulb. My Father said he lit up my Mother, and there she was, down on the floor, dancing and dancing. She was amazing, my Mother. She could spin any joke between curtain calls, she made the younger boys glow, the older ones aspire, she made each girl that hit that stage a star. Now Father and Mother aren’t around, the business changed a little, the customers got stranger, the boys grew. The piss became bitter, and suddenly dancing went brown.
And I guess I was to blame … I was so caught up in that show, that wonderful show that I didn’t notice what it had become. I keep losing myself in its love, its light. Until her … until she came along … pretty with those pouted lips, and a body like glass.
I gave her light, but I never touched her, I swear … only with my spotlight, and she was red, yellow, green, purple, pink all in one night. Every night she was my star, even after the curtain fell, and there was applause and nothing and darkness.
I gave her beginnings and endings and she gave me a lonely sort of love.
Sometimes she turned my way and the light would make a ghost of her face. Her makeup would be so heavy; the chin would drop a little … her lips full of rose lipstick, cheeks full of rouge. Mostly I looked at her face, but sometimes glanced at her body, those legs bound in fishnets and that marvellous puffing dress. With those tail-feathers, those feathers were art before burlesque became dirty dancing.
On the week before the curtain fell for its last time, things became difficult, tensions were high and careers were being broken — pay-cheques being handed out, worlds ending, so many tears, even my own.
Nobody said a word as the stage call sounded, nobody knew, really … the girl I lit up lay burnt out in the dressing room, her face still warm from so many years of dancing, but without pulse she was nothing. I found her; I screamed her name down the halls, wrenched open the door and everything disintegrated. What dancing gave her, it took from her. I gave her beginnings and endings and she gave me a lonely sort of love. And in my sadness, that gripping grief, I leant down and kissed her forehead and… and I whispered: Take me with you, take me, too.
---
Nobody mentioned the star, her costume fanning on the floor and lipstick bleeding down her chin. Nobody said a word as the stage call sounded, nobody knew, really. She was sixteen, pretty with those pouted lips, and a body like glass. If a girl were a drink, she’d be mine. She was never anybody’s. Everybody wanted to be her business. The stage hands hassled her with notes, sometimes chocolate gifts’ little silver trinkets that they probably stole from their girlfriends, wives, mothers, and they woke her up in the night with their knocks. I did the lightening in that show, crouched in the eaves, watching the peacock feathers blur; watching the audience, drunk with anticipation and excitement; watching her, dance and dance and dance.
My Father always said a girl had to have good feet, good arches. I remember him telling me as he showed me how to light up the stage and how, in some ways each girl was our bulb. My Father said he lit up my Mother, and there she was, down on the floor, dancing and dancing. She was amazing, my Mother. She could spin any joke between curtain calls, she made the younger boys glow, the older ones aspire, she made each girl that hit that stage a star. Now Father and Mother aren’t around, the business changed a little, the customers got stranger, the boys grew. The piss became bitter, and suddenly dancing went brown.
And I guess I was to blame … I was so caught up in that show, that wonderful show that I didn’t notice what it had become. I keep losing myself in its love, its light. Until her … until she came along … pretty with those pouted lips, and a body like glass.
I gave her light, but I never touched her, I swear … only with my spotlight, and she was red, yellow, green, purple, pink all in one night. Every night she was my star, even after the curtain fell, and there was applause and nothing and darkness.
I gave her beginnings and endings and she gave me a lonely sort of love.
Sometimes she turned my way and the light would make a ghost of her face. Her makeup would be so heavy; the chin would drop a little … her lips full of rose lipstick, cheeks full of rouge. Mostly I looked at her face, but sometimes glanced at her body, those legs bound in fishnets and that marvellous puffing dress. With those tail-feathers, those feathers were art before burlesque became dirty dancing.
On the week before the curtain fell for its last time, things became difficult, tensions were high and careers were being broken — pay-cheques being handed out, worlds ending, so many tears, even my own.
Nobody said a word as the stage call sounded, nobody knew, really … the girl I lit up lay burnt out in the dressing room, her face still warm from so many years of dancing, but without pulse she was nothing. I found her; I screamed her name down the halls, wrenched open the door and everything disintegrated. What dancing gave her, it took from her. I gave her beginnings and endings and she gave me a lonely sort of love. And in my sadness, that gripping grief, I leant down and kissed her forehead and… and I whispered: Take me with you, take me, too.