Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

  Chageet’s Electric Dance

  Rebecca Ashir

  Copyright © 2011 by Rebecca Ashir

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  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, mass media, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, things, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons, or things, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For Ethan

  Chageet’s

  Electric Dance

  1

  Barbey Bardot’s head was upside down as she brushed her hair. The set lights shimmered upon her blonde locks. “Brushing it like this makes it full and racy, like a supermodel or even a rock star. I love that windblown look. Try it,” she said to the American camera man who was ten years her senior, but already seemingly hypnotized by her alluring demeanor and stellar appearance.

  He stepped away from the movie camera, running his fingers through his crew cut as he chuckled. “I don’t think I have enough hair.”

  Flipping her head up, her hair fell like white rain glistening under the lights. Full and long, soft as silk. It rippled and waved like the sea just after a storm. Cool, pure elegance. The kind of hair everyone yearns to touch.

  Barbey had just finished acting in a television commercial for a Tijuana costume shop. She was hired for the role at a children’s dance contest in San Diego where she took first place. The director said the store wanted a sexy blonde about eighteen-years-old to say a few lines in Spanish, and they would pay her a hundred dollars. Even though she was only fourteen, they didn’t ask for an ID, so she was thrilled to comply. She was a natural actress and being in the spotlight was what she was all about.

  The rest of the commercial crew were gathered around the refreshment table filling their plates with the tasty, exotic meal catered by Tijuana’s Caesar’s Palace, a classy Mexican restaurant located down the street.

  The shoot was over. Barbey was just waiting to get paid. She forgot her street clothes in the movie trailer which had already left. So, she would have to leave in the sequined French cut dance costume and high heels she was wearing for the shoot.

  “A fortune teller told me I’m going to marry a man with an accent,” she said to the camera man. “He’s going to be really handsome and charming and even have magical powers.”

  “I’m handsome and charming,” he responded with a fake French accent. “Can’t promise magic though.”

  “Ooh, but I just love magic!” She spun around gaily.

  “Sounds like you’ve read too many fairy tales.”

  “My life is a fairy tale. Prince Charming is going to come and sweep me off my feet and I’m going to live happily ever after in a magic kingdom of sheer bliss.”

  Just then the middle aged, heavy set director waddled up to Barbey carrying a plate with lobster and a little saucer of melted butter. “I bring you food. You take; you too skinny.” He ogled her chest. “But, you chichis es muy grande—haha!” He laughed and laughed.

  Taking the plate, Barbey smiled faintly, unsure how to respond without offending the man who hired her for the acting job. For a moment she wanted to cry. A hard knot grew in her throat. She ran her delicate fingers down her soft hair, remembering how ugly she used to be before all her illegal plastic surgeries. Just months ago, her chest was nearly flat. But, this was what she wanted—attention and adoration—right?

  She turned back to him in an entirely new demeanor, taking a subtle, but sexy pose. “I can’t eat a thing,” she said, now suddenly speaking in her sultry Marilyn Monroe voice. Her intonation was soft and breathy. She then escalated her act the way Marilyn did in some of her films with a childlike giggle that in its contradiction always made every man wild with passion. She wanted to be desired. She wanted to be a star.

  His body twitched. His nostrils flared. The man appeared as excited as a bull ready to mate. But the camera man stepped between them and picked the lobster off the floor which had just fallen from Barbey’s plate.

  “Ooh,” Barbey glanced at her designer watch. “My mama’s probably waiting for me outside already. Gotta run. You can just mail me my paycheck.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” the camera man said.

  “Oh, no. Mama would be so mad seeing me with an adult man.” Then she thought to herself, Actually, she probably wouldn’t even notice. But, it was a good excuse anyhow.

  ****

  Outside, the setting sun was the color of blood. It looked like an open wound surrounded by scrapes and bruises set against the blue backdrop of sky. As the Tijuana tourist shops and street venders along Revolution Avenue closed for the night, the bars, nightclubs, and strip joints began to open and pound out their dance music onto the street. The pounding was entrancing and rhythmic. It could be felt beneath one’s feet, in the bones. There was no escaping it. A sense of desperation permeated the city.

  Barbey stood alone observing her surroundings, feeling quite nervous and out of sorts. She was languorously leaning against a graffittied wall of a nightclub near a drugstore. She tried to hide her fear, appearing unaffected. I gotta seem cool and tough. Nobody will bother me then.

  As she waited for her mother, she noticed that most of the tourists had departed for the night, leaving the promenade sidewalks relatively desolate, aside from a few locals and stragglers. She looked around anxiously for Mama’s Mercedes Benz, but the few cars that passed were old beat up sedans or low rider trucks. Darkness was falling fast.

  A group of rowdy neighborhood boys ran from a side street onto the avenue. They were laughing and pushing each other around playfully as they carried megaphones, gasoline urns, and other supplies. The boys looked at Barbey in interest, but they were too involved in their pursuits to give her much attention.

  As a prank, they rolled a couple of trashcans out onto the middle of the road. Barbey cringed as she watched them set the cans afire. Smoke filled the air.

  Now the boys stood in the road with their megaphones acting like police officers, directing traffic down a side street away from the blazing cans. They laughed and laughed at the absurdity of the situation they had created as they slapped their knees and hopped around like jumping beans to the rhythm of the pulsating discotheque music.

  An elderly man driving a hearse with a large florescent green cross propped up upon its roof and a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted on the door swerved around the blazing cans, nearly hitting the boys, and turned down the side street. A couple of young prostitutes walked up. They stood at the curb whispering to each other, watching the boys and the fires. A blind man with a tapping cane wobbled down the sidewalk and away from the scene.

  Coming from the alley another gang of boys ran out onto the avenue and started taunting the other boys. “Hey you idiots,” a big, thick boy with a hint of a mustache started yelling out in Spanish. “Keep off our turf.”

  “This isn’t your street,” a tall, thin rival boy said.

  The thick boy ran up to him and pushed him hard in the chest. At once, a fight broke out. The two boys were throwing p
unches, knocking each other around pretty hard. In no time, the other boys joined in fighting their rivals. It was a messy brawl.

  Barbey wanted to hide, but then Mama wouldn’t see her when she arrived. If that happened, Mama might just leave her there as punishment like the time she was late for pick up at the movie theaters. She had to walk home in the dark that time.

  The prostitutes looked over at Barbey, speaking to her in Spanish, but she didn’t understand them.

  “What do you want?” she just kept asking, feeling embarrassed that she didn’t know the language.

  They turned back to the scene, more interested in the chaotic event.

  The big, thick boy started hollering out like an Indian cry with his head tilted back and beating his chest. He looked crazed. It appeared as if he loved the fight. The flames were getting really big in the trash cans. Lots of smoke rising. The thick boy threw the tall, thin boy against one of the trash cans. He fell on it and knocked it over. The flames caught onto his shirt. He started screaming from the pain.

  The prostitutes were yelling now. One started banging on a storefront to get help. The injured boy fell and rolled on the ground putting the fire out of his shirt. In a rage, he got up quickly and lunged at the thick boy with a switch blade now in his hand. He was swinging it back and forth. The thick boy ran away into the alley as the other boy chased him with the knife. The remaining others took notice and chased behind. Somebody was screaming, “¡Viva Mejico!”

  Some other younger kids ran out of a nearby taco shop with fire extinguishers, which they sprayed onto the flames, putting the fires out. The kids rolled the cans out of the street where they laid, burnt and smoking at the curb. With the excitement waning, the prostitutes walked down the avenue to another location.

  The approaching darkness descended upon Barbey’s bare tan shoulders, upon her silky blonde hair, and upon her long legs covered in fishnet tights. Now that the fires were out, a tiny malnourished girl, who walked up and down the sidewalk shaking a tin can of coins caught her attention. The dance music hammered in her ears and the clanking coins rattled her nerves further. She noticed that a neon Elvis tied to the top of a parked car along the street was lighting up the pink sequins on her French cut dance costume causing it to sparkle and flash. The fringe around her hips fluttered in the summer wind.

  She wondered for a flash of an instant if God existed within all of this chaos and poverty, but then her mind switched to her usual thoughts of yearning to become a famous model, professional dancer, or a movie star one day. Her mind was all mixed up. She wondered what was taking Mama so long to pick her up and take her back to their home in El Cajon, a suburb across the border in San Diego County.

  She started thinking about some of her favorite films to distract herself as she waited. Barbey loved all types of popular media, especially movies. But even though she liked dramas, she didn’t like real life thrillers of the type she was watching right there on Revolution Avenue. Being stuck in Mexico with wild boys, fires, and pounding music all by herself, dressed like a whore, was a drama she’d rather watch on the big screen.

  The jingling of the coins began to rattle again. The tiny girl stood before Barbey now, gazing up at her sparkling dance costume. Her brown ink drop eyes were lit in wonder as she stared into Barbey’s movie star violet eyes, seemingly mesmerized by her Barbie Doll appearance. Barbey Bardot was beautiful—as long-legged and stunning as a plastic doll—an unusual spectacle for the weary girl’s vision.

  Barbey leaned uncomfortably against the nightclub wall. She unzipped the fanny pack around her waist, took out twenty dollars, and dropped it in the little girl’s can.

  The girl danced around in excitement saying, “Gracias, gracias, thank you!” Then she took Barbey’s hand, stood beside her, and said in English, “I love you.” The girl simply stood there holding her hand silently.

  Barbey’s hand began to sweat from the awkward feelings she felt holding this girl’s hand, but she felt a little relieved nonetheless to have some company. After a few minutes, the girl dropped her hand gently and sat against the wall next to Barbey’s feet.

  At least I kept my fanny pack around my waist, Barbey thought. She had been careful to not let the pack out of her sight the entire shoot because she had a can of pepper spray tucked inside. Although naive about most everything in life, she had always been a little nervous and at times, according to her mother, paranoid. So, she wasn’t about to go to Mexico by herself without protection.

  Barbey was not that surprised that her mother was late. It was not unusual for her to get distracted with work or a charity function, and forget her daughter. Barbey felt about a hundred nervous twitches course through her body whenever she thought of being stranded alone in Tijuana.

  She had been edgy lately since seeing The Accused, a film starring Jodie Foster playing the part of Sarah Tobias, a young woman who had been gang-raped in a local bar. That film terrified her. But Mama always says, “Don’t worry unless there’s a reason to worry. If you do, you only bring on the bad stuff yourself through your thoughts about it.” She couldn’t stand Mama’s ridiculous philosophies.

  As she looked up, she noticed two drunken American teenage guys step out of the strip bar across the street. The neon lights overhead flashed in their lustful eyes. Embarrassed, she turned away from them, as they eyed her up and down, discussing amongst themselves whether or not to approach her.

  She walked over to the corner of the street and stood next to a striped donkey that was tied up to a rig for tourist photos. She felt the guys’ eyes burning into her.

  When she looked up at them, from a distance, she noticed one looked a little like James Dean, but his hair was blonder. The other one was African American and looked to her like a younger version of Mr. T., dark and scary with lots of muscles. She wondered where the donkey’s owner was.

  Barbey sighed. “I wish I could set you free, Gordito.” Earlier in the day, she had asked the owner what the donkey’s name was. “It must be so painful standing here all day long, day after day.” She wrapped her arms around the animal’s neck, her hair falling forward over her tan shoulders. The little girl walked over beside her and began petting the donkey’s ruff, painted hair. When she looked up again, the guys were gone.

  Shortly thereafter, Barbey heard the shrill voice of a woman cry out in terror from the alley across the street near the strip bar. A sickened feeling came over her being, blanketing her in darkness. She was afraid. The woman’s pleas for help enveloped her.

  The little girl cried out, “Mama! Mama!” and ran into the street toward the alley.

  Barbey didn’t know what to do, so she chased after the girl in desperation across the street into the alley, her high heels clicking and clacking against the pavement, looking much like Wonder Woman in her scantily clad costume. She knew it was stupid to go alone, but she felt she had no choice. She couldn’t let this little girl fall into danger, and someone had to help the screaming woman.

  When she got to the alley, she saw the American guys, who had been standing before the strip bar minutes prior, had an attractive Mexican woman pinned to the ground as she struggled to get away.

  Barbey gasped, covering her mouth.

  The blonde guy punched the woman in the face several times. Blood poured from her nostrils and lips as she choked and gasped for air. The little girl jumped on top of him, trying to pull him off the woman. Violently, he knocked the girl off his back, sending her frail body flying across the alley.

  The black muscular guy pulled at the woman’s dress, trying to tear it off her thin body, but it had several ties and thick material. The woman wiggled and kicked aggressively, trying to get away, scratching the black guy in the face several times.

  Barbey was enraged by the injustice. Yet, she was terrified at the same time. She wasn’t sure if she should attack the men or run away.

  The little girl was lying on the ground across the alley crying hysterically. Images of Jodie Foster being raped in T
he Accused flashed through Barbey’s mind and mixed with the present images of the woman’s mutilated face and torn clothing.