Slow Dance in Purgatory

  Johnny sang too, and his voice tickled her ear “I’m just a fool…” Maggie’s heart missed a beat, and she leaned into him, resting her forehead on his chest.

  “Maggie?” Johnny nuzzled her ear, and Maggie lifted her face from his chest. Her high heels put her eyes on a level with his lips. She watched them, and they whispered her name again, willing her to lift her chin and allow him access. The suspense was achingly sweet, and Maggie shifted ever so slightly, wanting to prolong the moment. As she did, she caught her movement reflected back at her in the mirrors that lined the dance room walls along one side. She had been so caught up in the dancing and so caught up in trying to follow Johnny’s lead, that she had failed to notice their reflection. Her reflection. Maggie stood in the center of the floor, facing the mirrors, arms raised and circling…absolutely nothing.

  Johnny had no reflection. Her eyes swung down to the broad shoulders and firm chest supporting her arms, and then slid back to the overwhelming contradiction in the dance room mirrors. She held Johnny in her arms…yet held nothing at all. Her breath froze in her throat. Her lungs screamed for air, yet she couldn’t seem to remember how to inhale. Panicked, she pushed her way out of his embrace, stumbling back as the mirrors around her mocked her desperate untangling.

  Maggie’s vision teetered, blurring at the edges, and the room spun wildly around her. The music faded like it had suddenly been sucked through a long dark tunnel, and Maggie realized that for the first time in her life she was going to faint. Maggie’s stomach lurched wildly as she felt herself be swept up off her feet and cradled like a child. Fighting to stay conscious, Maggie gasped for air and called out.

  “Johnny?”

  “What’s wrong, Maggie?! What the hell is happening!?” Johnny’s voice was urgent and confused.

  “Take me out of this room, Johnny, please.”

  Faster than it took her to form her next thought, in a blur of speed and light, Maggie found herself outside the dance room, still held in Johnny’s arms, the door swinging harmlessly back to a closed position.

  “Where, Maggie?”

  “Just …..be still for a minute.” Maggie’s head was swimming, and she didn’t think she could stand.

  Johnny exhaled, his warm breath lifting Maggie’s hair where it clung to her feverish cheeks. Leaning back against the lockers, he slid slowly down the smooth metal surface, with Maggie still cradled in his arms, until he met the floor. He sat for several long minutes, Maggie silent and still against him. His warm hand made slow circles on her back, and Maggie concentrated on breathing deeply, in and out.

  After a time, the circles Johnny was making on her back widened to include her dark hair that fanned across his chest. Rubbing a silky strand between his fingers, he lifted it and tucked it sweetly behind the ear that peeked out behind the heavy tresses.

  “Are you all right?”

  Maggie nodded, but burrowed her nose in his chest. She didn’t want to tell him what had scared her so badly.

  “Maggie?”

  Maggie nodded again and sat up, sliding to the floor beside him. She tucked her legs under her, smoothing her skirt nervously. Sighing, she pushed her hair back from her face and raised her eyes to his.

  Blue eyes searched blue eyes as they regarded each other soberly, their faces only inches apart.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Johnny’s voice was low and gentle, as if he were afraid to send her reeling back into the abyss.

  “I couldn’t see you in the mirror.” Maggie spoke bluntly, seeing no way around the stunning revelation. “I could feel your heart beating, your arms around me, your breath in my ear,” Maggie blushed but soldiered on, her eyes still on his, “but in the mirror, you weren’t there. I stood completely alone in the center of the room. It was so surreal… and I think I forgot to breathe…I’m sorry for ruining everything.” And she was. How she wished she had missed that brief movement in the mirror and instead had pressed her lips to his, sealing the perfect hour with a kiss.

  Johnny’s eyes shifted from hers then, and he drew his legs up, leaning his elbows onto his knees and running a hand through his slicked back hair. It fell back into place. He scrubbed at it again, violently. It slid effortlessly back to its original perfection.

  “The night I died, for lack of a better word, I realized something was seriously wrong. I had felt myself dying. I was in horrible pain. I had a hole in my chest, and there was blood everywhere. I remember refusing to go. I fought it so hard, and then I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew I was standing, watching everything happening around me, but no one seemed to know I was there.

  “I saw my momma. She ran into the school, stood two feet from me, and didn’t see me. She didn’t hear me either – nobody did. They were all looking for me, but I couldn’t let them know I was right there, and honestly, I didn’t know if I really was…. do you understand?”

  Maggie nodded, transfixed

  “I collided with a deputy, and I felt it, just as I would have if I’d been… alive. He felt it too, though I can’t say what he felt exactly. He reacted, though. Then, I tried to leave the school when they took my brother’s body away, but I couldn’t. It was like I was on an invisible leash, and it would stretch just so far. I couldn’t hear or see anything beyond the school. I saw no stars shining through the windows, no sirens or lights from the police cars, nothing. .

  “Then later that night, the police searched the school. They spent hours digging through this place, searching high and low. I followed them around – even speaking to them, trying to tell them what had happened. It was like I wasn’t there at all. Then I got frustrated, and I tripped one officer, and he fell. I pushed one guy into another, and it started a fight between them. None of it made any sense.

  “When they all left, I went into the boys’ locker room. I was cold and scared, and I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I turned on the showers and stood beneath them in all my clothes. The heat felt good, but the water didn’t make me wet. My clothes were as dry as they’d been before. I felt like I was in the middle of a nightmare, and I couldn’t wake up. I ran out of the showers and toward the mirrors and realized I couldn’t see myself in them.”

  Maggie shuddered, understanding full well what that must have been like. She reached for him, but Johnny paused only briefly before beginning again, unloading the memory like he was reliving it once more. It occurred to her that he had never been able to unburden himself to anyone.

  “I broke them. I couldn’t stand it.” Johnny’s eyes met hers again. “I broke every mirror in that bathroom. I slammed my fists into them over and over. The glass was everywhere. I felt the pain in my fists, but there were no cuts and no blood. My hands were completely uninjured.” Johnny looked down at his hands, his palms up; he seemed lost in the past.

  “Before long, they fixed the mirrors. I’ve learned to avoid them. And, to tell you the truth, I’ve gotten used to it -- so used to it that I forgot. ” His voice dropped to just above a whisper. “I didn’t know it would be the same for you, Maggie. After all, you CAN see me.” Johnny smiled a little at that, but his eyes looked bleak, and Maggie longed to rewind the night back to “Rockin’ Robin,” when he had laughed and danced and seemed as care-free and innocent as the song.

  Johnny rose to his feet and leaned down to her, extending his hands. She let him pull her to her feet, but gripped his hands tightly when he would have turned away.

  “Don’t go!” Maggie couldn’t help but plead. “Just one more dance, please?”

  “The dance is over.” Johnny’s voice was gentle, but he was already pulling away. “The school is empty, Maggie. Isn’t there someone waiting for you, worrying about where you are?”

  She hated that it seemed so easy for him to leave her when she felt like her heart might break if she had to walk away. Not yet, please, not yet.

  “We have time for one more – don’t we?” It was certainly not yet midnight. If Aunt Irene were waiting, she wouldn??
?t be worried yet.

  Something warred in Johnny’s eyes, a battle of desperation and of need, and he bowed his head, holding it briefly in his hands, and she knew he was going to refuse her.

  Moving close, Maggie pulled his hands away from his downcast face and stepped within a breath of him, lifting her cheek to his when he wouldn’t lift his head. Where she got the courage, she didn’t know. It was a courage born of her own desperation, and she spoke just one word.

  “Please.” It was only a whisper of sound, but his arms slid around her, and from overhead a melody wafted down to wrap them in song.

  They moved slowly, cheek pressed against cheek, arms embracing one another.

  “Stay with me my darling

  I’m lost without your touch

  Without you time goes slowly

  And time can hurt so much

  Will you please stay?….”

  The song ended much too quickly, and as the last note faded Johnny whispered the words Maggie couldn’t bear to hear.

  “You have to go, Maggie.”

  “I don’t want to…”

  Johnny’s sigh echoed in her heart as he pressed his forehead against hers. “You have to, Maggie. This won’t get any easier. If you don’t go now, I won’t be able to let you go at all.”

  Maggie thrilled at his words and pressed a kiss into his palm.

  “Then I’ll stay.”

  Johnny threw himself from her with a guttural groan.

  “Don’t you think I want you to stay, Maggie? You’re all I think about. You’re everything I want! Don’t you think I’d keep you here with me if I could?” His voice had grown more strident. It was loud and cutting, reverberating down the empty corridor. Maggie winced and stepped back as if he had struck her. He pressed on ruthlessly.

  “I’d give anything to keep pretending – because that’s what we’re doing. We’re playing make believe.” Johnny’s hands fisted in his hair, and he spun, talking as much to himself as to her.

  “I was going to stay away from you – I tried so hard. But I saw you. You were so beautiful tonight and so alone, and I couldn’t resist. I had to get closer, and then…. I could see your sadness, and I couldn’t stand it. I told myself I could comfort you, that it would be just for a moment...“

  “Why would you even try to stay away?!” Maggie interrupted, as impassioned as he. “What did I do?”

  “It’s not what YOU did! It’s what I’m doing to you!” Johnny gaped at her, incredulous.

  “Maggie – if this were 1958, and none of this had ever happened, and I was just a guy and you were my girl…..I would hold on to you and never let you go,” Johnny implored huskily, “But it isn’t 1958…and I am not just a guy, in love with his girl.”

  Maggie swallowed back the yearning that his words conjured inside her. She stepped toward him again, and he raised his right hand, stepping back, warding her off.

  “Maggie! This can’t work! Don’t you understand? I am essentially a ghost. I have no life beyond these walls! This can only hurt you. I will only hurt you.” Johnny’s eyes glittered like twin blue lasers incinerating her with his gaze. He lifted his arm and pointed away from him.

  “You have to go.”

  “No,” Maggie whispered the word.

  “Maggie! Listen to me!”

  Maggie covered her ears with shaking hands, defying him.

  “Go!” The venom in his voice lashed out like a whip, and Maggie felt the heat radiate off of him like a billowing furnace.

  Maggie shook her head vehemently, her eyes filling with angry tears. “I won’t.”

  “Oh God!” he moaned, raising his face to the ceiling, in supplication to a higher power. His arms hung at his sides, fists clenched and muscles corded in an effort to resist.

  “I love you,” Maggie said honestly, her tears freely falling.

  “Maggie, please,” he pleaded with her then, the anger falling away as he moaned in surrender. With a speed that was beyond human, he swept her up against him, burying his face in her hair and crying out her name, over and over. Sinking to the ground with her, he rained kisses on her tear-stained cheeks, on her eyelids, on her soft mouth. His voice thick with emotion, he begged her not to cry, and begged her to forgive him. Then he was gone. Like a star winking out for the last time, he was gone, taking his light and his heat and Maggie’s heart with him.

  ***

  He watched over Maggie as she sat, huddled and crying in the dark corridor. He fought against his desire for her, against the need that buffeted him. Johnny felt her pain calling out to him, but he resisted, knowing that wanting her made him selfish, but loving her demanded he deny himself.

  She didn’t leave. With all his might, he willed her to return home to the arms that could hold her and comfort her. He exerted all his energy, which was considerable, to lift her from the floor and set her on her feet. But her will was not his to direct, and her physical self was not an energy he could control. She remained there, huddled in his prison, waiting for him to return.

  Johnny watched in agony as she cried herself to sleep, a despondent tumble of arms and legs, lying on the cold linoleum floor. He sent hot air billowing through nearby vents to warm her trembling form and soothe her troubled sleep. Time passed. He watched as the old man, Gus, and his grandson entered the school, their faces grey and drawn with worry. He heard them call her name, ached to direct them to her, and finally, saw them find her.

  “Miss Margaret!” Gus rushed to her side, the boy at his heels. “Oh Miss Margaret…what has happened to you, child?” Gus’s voice was thick with fear and sick with dread. He knelt by her sleeping form and rubbed his gnarled hand across her brow and down her bowed back, trying to rouse her.

  “Miss Margaret! Are you all right? Wake up, little girl. Wake up, now.” Neither Gus nor Shad would be able to carry her, even as slight as she was, and Maggie was emotionally and physically spent. She slept as if in a stupor, and Gus was getting very little response from her. Johnny fought the instinct to assist the old man, afraid to touch Maggie once more. But he was weak with guilt and grief, and he could not watch any longer.

  He crept closer, careful to avoid brushing against the boy or the old man. He knelt at Maggie’s head and stroked her hair without stirring a single strand. Sliding his hands under her head and shoulders, he eased her up slightly and, just as he hoped, she struggled to push herself upright. He whispered her name, and she trembled in response.

  “Johnny?” His name was a mournful sound on her lips, and the old man stiffened as if he’d been struck. The boy stumbled back, clearly afraid.

  Johnny instantly retreated; with a flash of energy he stood several yards back, once again observing.

  Gus and Shad were able to coax Maggie to her feet, her slight body wedged between them, her arms along their shoulders, and their arms around her waist. She leaned heavily into Shad, and Johnny felt a stab of jealousy so intense it made him catch his breath and clutch his chest. What he wouldn’t give to walk from these walls, out into the early morning air, his arm around the girl he loved.

  Somehow, Maggie communicated the whereabouts of her possessions, because Shad released her and ran ahead to the girls’ locker room. Gus remained by her side, walking slowly, his thin arm around her shoulders as they neared the exit doors. Johnny followed at a distance.

  As they pushed through, Gus glanced back and for a moment his eyes met Johnny’s. His lips thinned and his brows lifted. Shock flickered across his tired face. “He sees me,” Johnny thought before the door swooshed closed, and Maggie and Gus became part of the black that was beyond.

  16

  “I ALMOST LOST MY MIND”

  Pat Boone - 1958

  “Something terrible has happened to her, Gus!”

  “She didn’t look physically hurt, Miss Honeycutt. No blood, no bruises, and her clothing wasn’t torn or mussed. She was asleep…just lying in the hallway, fast asleep.”

  “She’s positively catatonic, Gus! She isn’t talking,
isn’t making eye contact…something is wrong! Who falls asleep on the floor in their party dress? I don’t smell alcohol. Could it be drugs?”

  “Oh, no, Miss Honeycutt. Miss Margaret isn’t into any of that. Something is wrong, but it isn’t that.”

  “Then what, Gus? I can’t help her if I don’t know what has happened.” Irene was understandably distraught. She had awoken at an ungodly hour, one of the plagues of old age, and discovered that Maggie had never come home the night before. She hadn’t known where to look, and Maggie had the car, so she had called Gus, seeking his help, and he, in turn, woke Shad. Shad had been the one to suggest they start looking at the school. Gus told Irene they would check and get right back to her. When they had seen Irene’s car parked all alone in the big front parking lot, they had immediately commenced their search.

  Gus was silent. He worked the brim of his hat around and around, chewing something over in his mind before he fed it to his old friend. He sighed, knowing it just wasn’t in him to keep secrets. She was going to think he was a crazy old man.

  “It didn’t take us a long time to find her,” Gus started to recount the event for Irene. “She looked like an abandoned doll, all dressed up and tossed aside. When I first saw her,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “I thought she was dead.”

  Irene gasped and held her hand to her trembling lips.

  Gus winced sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, Miss Irene. I’m just trying to help you understand what I saw.”

  Irene nodded, urging him to continue.

  “It scared me to death, and I cried out to Jesus and ran to her. I think Shad thought the same thing, ‘cause he held back, probably afraid to see the truth. When I got to her, I saw that she had been crying – probably for a long time. But from what I could see she wasn’t injured or harmed. I told Shad, ‘She’s sleeping, Shad, just sleeping.’ I thought that poor boy was gonna break down right there. He’s had too much sadness in his young life. He sure don’t need anymore.” Gus put his hat on his head and took it off again.