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Have you come to boogie, baby?
The janitor stands alone on the dancefloor. He sways in the orbit of its still moon. Tiny diamonds hover but do not give chase as he sweeps forward remnants of torn tassels and lipstick kissed cigarettes.
What’s that look I see in your eye?
He points a steeled toe and slides it across the vinyl tiles as they simmer in the embers of the trembling light. The exit sign flickers as the street’s breeze eases a breath of glitter across the room. The janitor extends his fingers and closes them over his outstretched palm. He strikes a pose.
Yeah, that’s right, daddy. Get down.
The stars blur around him as they stretch thin the decades. A needle drops, a turntable starts, and the janitor starts to spin.
Explode with me, into hyperspace.
He is ensorcelled by visions of his dynamite baby as she boogies with the wings of heaven on her shoes. Her arms like melamine, yet unbruised, yet unbitten, weave like ribbons through the electric air.
You feel that, sugar, you feel it coming?
She beckons him with serpentine hips as he sways toward her; an errant curtain, caught in the torrent of her unexpected gust. He feels the wisps of her pull him tight, his vixen of velour, his panther of the pickerel print platforms, this ghostly vision of his years-gone love, and its undoing.
You dance, you shake, you hurt.
His fingers descend the smooth shaft of his broomstick as he casts his line to reel her in. She vibrates on the wire, twirls inward, and penetrates his chest like gunfire (or a needle through his soft flesh).
Gimme some skin, brother. That’s right. That’s right.
He leans the broomstick long against his locked knee as he invites his sweet apparition to toboggan the slope of his velveteen thigh. She ascends the gorge of his sequined neckline and he whispers a prayer onto her cream-rinsed hair.
Stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive.
His dynamite baby’s limbs scissor sideways as the janitor lifts her skyward. Together they rocket through the celestial blur; past the tendrils of her terrible tomorrows, the heartaches, the hospitals, the potions, the pills, the cluster of cables that failed to restart her heart of glass.
Say your prayers, baby, just don’t care.
He launches her forward into the feverish night, propels her past the motionless moon, and watches as her body writhes toward the surface of the sun. Then his dynamite baby starts to sizzle as the needle slips its groove and the record stops.
Burn, Baby, burn.
The broomstick clatters from the janitor’s hands and comes to rest atop the pile of the midnight’s leavings. The grit of the floor penetrates the thin layer of his brown corduroy knees and his ragged breath spreads across the ruffled cinders of the disco.
Catch you on the flip side, sunshine.
Baby, turn me loose.
You’ve watched me baby when I thought I was alone. You saw the anguish in my soul, pulled out my feelings to show the world. And you told my story so well baby. Dan(No Ann) 76
Loved it. Thanks