Slow Dance in Purgatory

by Amy Harmon

Johnny tried to open his eyes and resisted the magnetic pull that fought to wrench him from himself. It was like the pull of the undertow, and for a moment Johnny thought he was dreaming. He thought he was back at the beach - ten years old - feeling the sand being sucked out beneath his toes, his mom and Billy back on the blanket, the sun bright overhead. But the pull was much stronger, and Johnny fought for something to anchor himself to. His hands didn't want to work, and his legs felt like they had fallen asleep. His chest burned like he had been too long underwater. He curled his toes inside his boots and fought against the pull with all his might. Why was he wearing his boots at the beach?

  In terror, he realized what the pull was, and he forced his eyes open to find his brother. Billy lay beside him.

  "Billy?" He tried to form the words, but he could not.

  "Billy!" He tried again and heard only a whisper of breath. Billy wasn't fighting the pull like Johnny was. He was lying on his back, and his eyes were opened. There was blood beneath his head, and he wasn't moving. He wasn't moving, and he wasn't breathing.

  Johnny screamed inside his head. He screamed, and he fought the pull and demanded an audience with the source of the power trying to disconnect him from his body.

  "I'm not going anywhere!" he raged over and over, over and over, until the pressure built and exploded in white light and brilliant sparks like a blow torch on metal. Johnny felt a snapping and a shredding. But there was no pain, only pressure, and then a giant crack, like a million balloons simultaneously popping. And then…nothing.

  2

  “SOUND OFF”

  Vaughn Monroe - 1951

  November, 2010

  Maggie swung one long leg up behind her and unfolded her arms like a great bird lifting itself off the water. Rising on relevé she felt the beauty of the movement and smiled to herself. This was the best kind of dancing: no one around, the dance floor all yours, no critics, no fans, just music. Singing to herself, Maggie swung around and faced her reflection in the mirror. Wide blue eyes met wide blue eyes for an instant before a long dark cloud of hair obscured her vision. Swinging her hair back in a practiced movement, Maggie yelped as she caught another reflection standing just beyond her.

  "Sorry, Miss Margaret." Gus Jasper looked abashed. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just need your help now."

  Old Gus was the school's long time maintenance man, which made him her boss. Gus was as good natured and gentle as he was patient, which was fortunate for Maggie, because this wasn’t the first time he’d had to come find her after school. Luckily, he never seemed to mind.

  Maggie looked dejectedly at the clock. Yep. Time was up. For the last three months, Maggie had worked as a janitor almost every day after school. Cleaning the school was a giant pain, but it gave Maggie the money she needed to be on the dance team, and Gus was sweet to give her a key to the dance room so that she could squeeze in some dancing in the evenings when her work was done and early in the morning before school started. She hadn't meant to lose track of time. Usually she knew better than to allow herself to stay after last period, which was when the dance team rehearsed. She had just wanted to dance by herself for a minute, and then she got a little carried away. Before she knew it, a half hour had passed.

  "I'm sorry you had to come looking for me, Gus." Maggie smiled her apology. She scrambled for her duffle bag, pulled her sweatshirt on over her leotard, and shoved her feet into her worn out Chuck's. Her dance pants were loose and comfortable and would do as well as her jeans. She couldn't exactly change in front of Gus. Leotard notwithstanding, she didn't want to embarrass the sweet, old guy. Plus, she was pretty sure Aunt Irene would not think it was ladylike. Maggie smiled at the thought. Aunt Irene was nothing if not ladylike.

  Irene Honeycutt had been the lovely daughter of wealthy business owner, Jackson Honeycutt. Honeyville had been founded and named for Irene's own grandpa, and if there was a first family of Honeyville, the Honeycutts were it. Irene had married young to a promising son of Honeyville and lived the rest of her life in the confines of the Texas town. Her husband had turned out to be all promise, no prince. He had squandered Irene's inheritance, run Honeyville industries into the ground, and controlled Irene with an iron fist until the day he died. When he did, Irene had finally been able to bring Maggie to live with her. And she had finally been able to pursue Gus to her heart's content. Apparently, it was never too late for love. Maggie smiled again. Aunt Irene denied it, but Maggie was pretty sure she had a thing for the gentle, black janitor.

  Gus had come to Texas as a young man to play basketball for an all-black college. He had badly injured his knee and instead of playing basketball, he had ended up in Honeyville with his new bride, working as a janitor at the high school. He had been there ever since. Gus and Irene had become acquainted when Gus’s wife, Mona, had been hired as a housekeeper for the Honeycutt family when Irene was just a senior in high school. When Irene had married and set up her own house, Mona Jasper had gone with her. The two had become more than just employer and employee. Mona had struggled with her pregnancies, eventually giving birth to two healthy babies when she was in her early forties. Irene never gave birth to any babies at all, but had been plagued by one miscarriage after another. The two women had bonded through shared experiences, through heartache and loss. They had learned to laugh together and look out for one another. Irene had grieved almost as deeply as Gus when Mona died several years ago. She had promised Mona that she would look after Gus and Mona’s young grandson, and she had kept that promise.

  "Are you and Shad coming to dinner tonight, Gus?" Maggie asked as they began their rounds, emptying classroom garbage cans and changing trash bags. Shad was Gus's fourteen-year-old grandson who was currently living with his grandpa. His mother's whereabouts were mostly unknown, and his father's identity was completely unknown, which made Shadrach Jasper Gus's responsibility most of the time. And he was a handful, that one.

  "Aunt Irene said she's making lemon meringue pie for desert. She said it was your favorite." Maggie waggled her eyebrows at Gus, and he smiled sheepishly at her.

  “We'll be there, Miss Margaret.” Gus nodded his head with his assent. “But we gotta get the floors in the upper halls mopped up tonight, and I’m still workin’ on that gymnasium floor. Shadrach's working on the second floor and the lobby as we speak. I need you to go on up to the third floor and do your best to get those hallways done when we finish up here.”

  Maggie stifled a groan and instead cheerfully nodded her head, not wanting to complain. She hated working alone on the upper floors. She always felt as if someone was going to walk around the corner or sneak up behind her and drag her away. The gymnasium was so far away that Gus would never hear her if she screamed. If she were honest with herself, Gus probably wouldn’t hear her if he were in the very next hallway. He was always turning his hearing aid off when he was alone because it whistled and drove him crazy. The halls could be filled with howling banshees, and he wouldn’t know it. She wished she and Shad could work together, but Gus probably knew best. Shad talked non-stop and was always trying to impress Maggie, which made Maggie laugh but didn't make either of them very productive.

  Grabbing the mop and bucket from the third floor janitor closet, Maggie filled the bucket with hot water and cleaning solution and made her way down the long hall that stretched from one end of the building to the other. The senior lockers, alternating in black and white, gleamed in parallel rows along each side. If you squinted and tilted your head they looked like the keys on a giant piano. Maggie realized she didn't have to squint at all and remembered she had left her glasses back in the dance room on top of the sound system. She wasn't trekking down there now . She would have to make due with limited vision and hope she didn't miss anything.

  About a half hour into her work, the music came on through the sound system, and Maggie had to smile at Gus's selection. Whenever she was alone up here he seemed to get a hankering for some oldies. She had gotten distracted by the music and ended up da
ncing down the hallways more than once. In fact, it happened almost every night. The songs all sounded like they would be played at a 50s Sock Hop or something.

  Maggie wasn't sure when “Great Balls of Fire” came out, but it was definitely decades old. It was still fun to dance too, though. Maggie sashayed and boogie woogie'd down the hall with her mop, going all Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.” Maybe she could convince the dance team to do a throwback number. Not likely. The girls on the dance team mostly ignored her. It was obvious that they thought her janitor job was a little embarrassing and, by association, seemed a little embarrassed that she was on the dance team. Maggie sighed loudly, posing Elvis style to the final refrain of "Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!"

  Maggie was accustomed to being the odd man out. Since her parents had died when she was ten, Maggie had bounced around the foster care system, never staying anywhere for much more than a year. Her Great Aunt Irene was the only family she had, and though Irene had wanted her, Irene's husband, Roger Carlton, had not and had forbidden Irene from bringing the orphaned ten-year-old Maggie to live with them. She had made a few friends along the way, only to leave them behind when her situation changed.

  She had learned to steel herself against close relationships and keep her own company. And though she wasn't mean, Maggie had become tough. She still remembered what it had been like to love and be loved, but after seven lonely years, she knew what it felt like to want love and not receive it and to be hungry for affection and never be touched. She knew what it felt like to be somebody's burden and to be somebody else's meal ticket. There were great people in the foster care system, but there were more than a few bad apples who took kids in only to collect the money the state paid in their behalf…or worse.

  Since Maggie had come to live with Aunt Irene, life had gotten a lot better. Irene showered her with love and was so genuinely happy to have her young niece with her at last that Maggie couldn't doubt her affection. Maggie's mother, Janice, had been close to her Aunt Irene all through her growing up years; her own mother, Irene's younger sister and Maggie's grandma, had lived right next door to Irene until she passed away from cervical cancer a couple years after Maggie's mother had gone back East for college. Aunt Irene had mourned her sister terribly and begged Janice to come home to stay. But Maggie's mother had met Mickey O'Bannon by that time, and the young Irishman had swept her off her feet. She hadn't wanted to leave him, even for her Aunt Irene.

  Maggie smiled mournfully at the thoughts of her parents. They had been wonderful. Her dad could dance without ever seeming to tire. He had jigged and spun her around, feet flying to the music he loved. Janice, her mother, had been less talented but equally exuberant, and the three of them had heartily enjoyed dancing together. Surprised at her melancholy musings, Maggie wiped a stray tear off her cheek and laughed a little to herself. It must be the music that was making her weepy. “Great Balls of Fire” had been followed by “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and Maggie abandoned the mop altogether as she let the music lift her up and out of herself.

  Maggie hadn't had any formal training. No one paid for foster kids to have dance lessons. But she had watched and learned and practiced and no one would ever guess she had never had a single lesson. She loved to dance more than anything else in the world, and she really hoped Gus didn't come around the corner and see her dancing her heart out instead of mopping. If Shad saw her she would never hear the end of it.

  Maggie spun and swayed down the long corridor; dancing always made her feel like her parents were watching, and so she performed for them. The song rose to its climactic finish, and Maggie, extending her leg high behind her, arched her back and caught it, holding it with her head flung back and her eyes closed. As she released her leg and opened her eyes, she caught a glimpse of someone leaning against the lockers about halfway down the swiftly darkening hallway. Maggie cried out and fell to the glossy floor, all grace abandoning her. She crab-walked frantically back and promptly banged her head on the lockers behind her.

  "Crap!" Maggie said, rubbing the spot, her heart pounding in concert to the throbbing of her head.

  "Gus? Is that you? I'll get back to work, I promise. You know I can't resist dancing to a good song. It's all your fault, you know." Maggie laughed nervously and rose to her feet. "Gus?"

  There was no answer from the hallway where Maggie KNEW she had seen someone. Squinting and cursing herself for not having her glasses, Maggie rose to her feet and slowly moved toward the blackest part of the hallway. It was probably Shad, waiting to jump out at her and scare her to death.

  "Shad? You know you wish you could dance as good as me. Come on! Come out, and I'll teach you a few moves." Maggie and Shad were always arguing about who was the best dancer. Shad was terrible, but what he lacked in talent he made up for in personality.

  "Are you spying on me? Trying to learn something, huh?" No answer. It was not like Shad to remain quiet. In fact, Maggie thought it was probably physically impossible for him to be still for ten seconds. Maggie's heart started to pound double time.

  Evening had suddenly descended on the school, and the high windows above her offered little light to aid her search. But even without her glasses, Maggie could see that someone was definitely there.

  "Dumb! Dumb Girl!" she screamed at herself silently. "Danger ahead!" But she kept walking. The figure moved.

  "You shouldn't be in the school! I'll have to tell Gus, uh, Mr. Jasper that you're here!" Maggie's voice came out scared and sharp, and she jumped as it echoed off the now silent hallway. Maggie stopped, suddenly very afraid and unwilling to proceed further.

  "'Cause we'll be reelin' and a’ rockin’, rockin’ and a’reelin' all night!!" The music blasted out of the intercom above her, blaring and wailing, several decibels louder than it had been just seconds before. Maggie's hair lifted as if a strong wind had just swept down the hallway and wrapped around her. A flash of color and motion caught the corner of her eye, and she whirled, her legs leaden with fright, and fled down the corridor, skidding and sliding on the section of floor she had recently mopped. Without slowing at all, she raced to the emergency exit and flew down the two long flights of stairs. Bursting out the door and into the hallway below, Maggie didn't stop until she reached the gymnasium where Gus was laboring with a floor stripper. He was deaf to the world, or so it seemed, because he didn't turn until Maggie grabbed his arm.

  ` "Gus! Gus!" Maggie was breathless and gasping, and she had the almost irresistible urge to burst into tears. Gathering herself, she bit down on the tears and tried again. She had learned the hard way that crying got her nowhere.

  "Gus. There’s someone in the upstairs hallway. I called out to him...I think it was a man...and he didn't answer. It scared me, and I thought I better come get you."

  "What?" Gus switched his hearing aid back on, and Maggie heard a high pitched squeal. Gus winced in response.

  "Darn thing," Gus muttered to himself, and then looked at Maggie expectantly. "You okay, Miss Margaret?" Gus always called her Miss Margaret. It was kind of cute when she wasn't scared to death.

  Maggie repeated herself patiently, trying to appear calm and hoping that Gus wouldn't make her go back upstairs with him. On second thought, she didn't want to wait here by herself either.

  "Hmmm." Gus took off his baseball cap and scratched his head in thought. “You sure it wasn't Shad? Sounds like something he'd do."

  "I thought of that, but, no. It wasn't Shad."

  "Did I hear the lovely lady say my name?" Shadrach Jasper, all ninety pounds of him, strutted around the corner with his mop and bucket trundling behind him. "Miss me, Mags? 'Cause I sure missed you." Shad tried to sound all Barry White, but the effect was ruined by the squeal that his voice made on the last syllable. Give him a year, and the deep honeyed tones that teased him with inconsistency would be his for good, but at the moment his voice sounded like a braying donkey most of the time.

  "I said your name, Shad, but no, sadly, I didn't miss you," Maggie
teased, ridiculously relieved to see him.

  "It's a little early to quit, but I think we can call it a day," Gus reasoned. "We worked a long time yesterday. Let's go upstairs and see what's what. We’ll get your mop and bucket and call it a night."

  Gus proceeded to wind up the long cord on the stripper machine he had been using and then pushed it into the janitor's closet before heading back up the stairs to the third floor where Maggie had seen the intruder. Gus didn't seem scared or upset, and he didn't hurry to get to the third floor. Of course, Maggie had never actually seen Gus hurry. Shad, on the other hand, buzzed between them, asking non-stop questions about the intruder. At the top of the stairs, he paused long enough to hide behind her and peek around when Gus reached for the door.

  "My hero," Maggie whispered dryly.

  The heavy door swung inward, and Gus stepped out into the hallway and flipped on the switch, illuminating the long expanse as the lights flickered to life.

  "You moppin’ in the dark, Miss Margaret?"

  "It wasn't dark when I started, Gus!" Maggie huffed out, and then smiled a little when she realized the old man was teasing her, trying to distract her from her nerves.

  "Helloooo down there!" Gus called out, his voice ricocheting off the lockers. He walked down the hallway as if he had all day, Maggie on his heels. There was no sign of anyone, and the hallway felt empty now, with no unnatural hush or sinister silence.

  "I don't think anyone's here, Miss Margaret. They probably slipped out when you left," Gus said matter-of-factly. "Where's the mop and bucket? You sure did make quick work of this hallway. It looks good, too. I thought it'd take you a lot longer."

  The hallway was shiny, clean smelling, and freshly wet. The entire hallway was completely finished. Maggie gasped and whirled around, spotting her mop and bucket neatly waiting next to the exit door. She had left the mop splayed in a messy heap, and the bucket had been about a third of the way down the hall. Someone had finished her work. It couldn't have taken her more than ten minutes to return with Gus. Probably even less than that, yet the huge hallway was definitely freshly mopped. It would have taken Maggie another hour to finish, at least.