We Dance to Forget
By
P. T. Corwin
It’s all about saying no, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy sometimes. Some people have to keep saying no every day for the rest of their lives. Like crawling back up to zero.
When I go out and I’m hungry, those are the people I look for.
I’ve been doing well for a while. Kept clean and sane as much as I could. I won’t sit here and lie and tell you it was easy. It’s taken me a lifetime to get here. But you count the days, and the more of the good ones you put behind you, the more you can pat yourself on the shoulder and say, ‘Good job, mate.’
It’s not like there hasn’t been temptation. Central London gets busy in the evening, especially the closer you get to Christmas.
Soho comes with its own challenges. I keep my hands in the pockets of my trench coat as I pass the neon-lit facades. Cocktails to the left, strippers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle.
Some sleazy guy bleeds out of the shadows of an entryway, cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. New girls, he says with a mellow voice. Only the best. Very cheap. Clean private rooms. Only fifty quid for fifteen minutes in the back.
It’s exactly what I need.
In the low blue light, while the bass pumps a rhythm of need into the atmosphere, you can’t see the despair on the faces of the shadow people. You can taste it, though, spreading across the empty stage like a mixture of sweat and month-old fish, lingering as the women in their see-through outfits pass. An older guy in the corner lowers his head when he sees me come in and clutches a glass of champagne.
‘See anything you like?’ the sleazy guy asks, his voice still mellow despite having to stretch over the music.
It’s in the tone. A knowing. An understanding. A teasing.
He knows what I am.
‘Have we met?’ I ask.
He grins with moon-yellow teeth, worse in the blue light that makes the patterns on the walls glow but makes him look… rotten. ‘Come on, Augustine! Have you forgotten your old mate?’
The name escapes me, but the grin brings back memories of a filthy room in a Soviet town that no longer exists. The human ruins huddled together in the dim light, hiding the needle marks under long and tattered sleeves. Me feeding while he looks on, the grin hiding disgust as the sickly brown tendrils leave their bodies and seep into mine.
Funny how he reminds me of them now. His eyes like a cheap electric candle when the battery is about to die.
‘It’s Auggie now,’ I say.
He waves the name away like an offending cloud of smoke. ‘Well, Auggie, you look good.’ He says it like it’s a bad thing.
‘Yeah. Been keeping clean.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ A bite has crept into his mellow voice. ‘But you wouldn’t say no to a hit, right?’
My eyes stray to the man in the corner.
‘Fie! Not him.’ He thrusts a finger in my face, the tip bitten down to its jagged remains. ‘You should meet Mary. Lovely girl, just started. Eyes like a double rainbow, so full of hope.’ His tongue darts out and grazes his chapped lips.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Auggie. Mate.’ His haggard face twists with pain and disappointment. It’s fake, of course, or I could smell it in the air between us. ‘I’m just trying to be a good host here.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘Just one hit for old times’ sake.’
There aren’t enough memories of the old times for that to mean anything.
‘You can’t leave me hanging like that.’
I can. And I will. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘You’re serious.’
One of the women brings the man in the corner another glass of champagne. He slips a note into her thong. Before the evening is over, he’ll spend most of his monthly paycheck on the dream of being wanted. And she will take it and buy herself however much she can get for it. She will spend the night in the sweet haze of oblivion, pretending that the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.
‘You know, I’ve tried your way for a bit,’ my nameless friend says. ‘It’s no fun, I can tell you that.’
‘It’s not meant to be.’
‘I saw my friends and family drown in the ice near Newfoundland. I saw the mass graves filled with emaciated children. Who would choose to live like that for… how long?’
‘A lifetime or two. And I would do a lifetime or two more for what I have.’
He shakes his head like he pities me. ‘And what is that, besides their pain?’
Another, younger woman - Mary perhaps? - sways onto the stage in a white blouse, loose tie and a tartan skirt. Her hair is cotton candy pink, her smile sincere. Holding on to the pole, she begins to move in a genuine effort of seduction.
The man in the corner leans forward. I can smell his lust, a red scent like cherry liqueur.
‘Freedom,’ I say. ‘From craving. From regret after.’
My mellow-voiced friend scoffs. ‘Freedom? You call having to say no to everything freedom? We have the power to take what we want. Is that not the real freedom?’
Mary catches my eye. She smiles, an invitation that only extends to the edge of her stage. She beckons me with slender fingers, fingers that trace the soft curve of her neck.
‘Take what you deserve.’ His voice is in my ear, hot breath invading.
The man in the corner looks at me, then back at the young woman dancing. His jealousy mixes with the lust, a bitter tang that scars the flavour. And underneath it all, the mouldy bite of his trauma: I know now that he was married once. His wife left him for a better man. They have all left him, and all he needs is for someone to stay.
‘We can use this to help.’ I step away from my nameless friend, away from Mary and her smile and that sweet scent of hope. ‘We’re the only ones who can.’
He follows me to the bar.
The bartender - a blonde with the lip fillings, Botox cheeks and breasts of a former dancer - awakes from her mental displacement. ‘What can I get for you, love?’
‘Don’t bother, Trace,’ he says. ‘He’s not drinking anymore.’
‘If it’s the taste you don’t like, I’ve got some nice cocktails on the menu. You look like someone who enjoys something sweet.’
On stage, Mary slings her leg around the pole and twirls. Round and round and round and
My nameless friend laughs. ‘Oh, he doesn’t mind a foul taste. But he’s a better man now. Aren’t you, Auggie?’
From here, the exit seems a thousand miles away.
The bartender moves on to another customer, a young man who can’t stop bouncing on his heels.
‘Just a water,’ he says, pinching his nose and frantically wiping off something that isn’t there anymore. He sniffs. ‘Make it two.’
My old acquaintance leans over. ‘Do you think he deserves his euphoria more than you? He stole it out of a little bag, so why can’t you take it from him?’
‘Because it’s fake. It’s artificial. Euphoria-flavoured candy.’
He nods at the stage again where Mary is upside-down on the pole, still smiling. ‘Hers isn’t. I know you can smell it.’
I can. If anything, it’s gotten stronger, a pure golden yellow with streaks of turquoise, like a sun reflected in an immaculate ocean. She actually enjoys moving to the music, the lustful looks she gets.
‘When was the last time you had something as sweet as that?’ my nameless acquaintance asks.
I thrust my hands into my trench coat, grip the inside of the pockets. ‘I don’t need it.’
‘But you do. For the same reason our very hungry cocainepillar over there needs what he took. You can smell that too, right? The fourteen-hour days, six days a week. A decent paycheck, yes, but not enough to buy away the stress, the fatigue, the burnout. The wishing he could quit it all, one way or another. Life takes so much, Auggie, and it doesn’t like to give back. So we have to take it. Take any little morsel of happiness we can find in this deep, dark world. Not because we deserve it, no. Because we need a balance, something to keep us afloat, our heads above this river of shit that drags us along, on and on until we’re too exhausted to kick. We don’t need it to get high, to feel euphoria. We need it to make the pain more bearable.’
Crawling back up to zero.
On stage, Mary takes off her skirt, slow, savouring the moment. She relishes in the stares from the man who has now come out of the corner to sit at a table closer to her. She drinks in the adoration from the young man at the bar. The sweetness of her pride is intoxicating. It makes me forget. So much to forget. So many things that might never go away. But I could mask them, if only for a while.
I close my eyes and breathe her in. ‘When does she finish?’
P. T. Corwin uses his training as an actor to read to himself in funny voices. He is proud to say that in secondary school, he read Stephen King so religiously that his teacher had a quiet word with his mother. His stories have most recently been published in Black Ink Fiction, Schlock Webzine and Hedge Apple and The Dark Sire. He celebrates his literary victories on his website at www.ptcorwin.co.uk.
By
P. T. Corwin
It’s all about saying no, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy sometimes. Some people have to keep saying no every day for the rest of their lives. Like crawling back up to zero.
When I go out and I’m hungry, those are the people I look for.
I’ve been doing well for a while. Kept clean and sane as much as I could. I won’t sit here and lie and tell you it was easy. It’s taken me a lifetime to get here. But you count the days, and the more of the good ones you put behind you, the more you can pat yourself on the shoulder and say, ‘Good job, mate.’
It’s not like there hasn’t been temptation. Central London gets busy in the evening, especially the closer you get to Christmas.
Soho comes with its own challenges. I keep my hands in the pockets of my trench coat as I pass the neon-lit facades. Cocktails to the left, strippers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle.
Some sleazy guy bleeds out of the shadows of an entryway, cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. New girls, he says with a mellow voice. Only the best. Very cheap. Clean private rooms. Only fifty quid for fifteen minutes in the back.
It’s exactly what I need.
In the low blue light, while the bass pumps a rhythm of need into the atmosphere, you can’t see the despair on the faces of the shadow people. You can taste it, though, spreading across the empty stage like a mixture of sweat and month-old fish, lingering as the women in their see-through outfits pass. An older guy in the corner lowers his head when he sees me come in and clutches a glass of champagne.
‘See anything you like?’ the sleazy guy asks, his voice still mellow despite having to stretch over the music.
It’s in the tone. A knowing. An understanding. A teasing.
He knows what I am.
‘Have we met?’ I ask.
He grins with moon-yellow teeth, worse in the blue light that makes the patterns on the walls glow but makes him look… rotten. ‘Come on, Augustine! Have you forgotten your old mate?’
The name escapes me, but the grin brings back memories of a filthy room in a Soviet town that no longer exists. The human ruins huddled together in the dim light, hiding the needle marks under long and tattered sleeves. Me feeding while he looks on, the grin hiding disgust as the sickly brown tendrils leave their bodies and seep into mine.
Funny how he reminds me of them now. His eyes like a cheap electric candle when the battery is about to die.
‘It’s Auggie now,’ I say.
He waves the name away like an offending cloud of smoke. ‘Well, Auggie, you look good.’ He says it like it’s a bad thing.
‘Yeah. Been keeping clean.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ A bite has crept into his mellow voice. ‘But you wouldn’t say no to a hit, right?’
My eyes stray to the man in the corner.
‘Fie! Not him.’ He thrusts a finger in my face, the tip bitten down to its jagged remains. ‘You should meet Mary. Lovely girl, just started. Eyes like a double rainbow, so full of hope.’ His tongue darts out and grazes his chapped lips.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Auggie. Mate.’ His haggard face twists with pain and disappointment. It’s fake, of course, or I could smell it in the air between us. ‘I’m just trying to be a good host here.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘Just one hit for old times’ sake.’
There aren’t enough memories of the old times for that to mean anything.
‘You can’t leave me hanging like that.’
I can. And I will. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘You’re serious.’
One of the women brings the man in the corner another glass of champagne. He slips a note into her thong. Before the evening is over, he’ll spend most of his monthly paycheck on the dream of being wanted. And she will take it and buy herself however much she can get for it. She will spend the night in the sweet haze of oblivion, pretending that the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.
‘You know, I’ve tried your way for a bit,’ my nameless friend says. ‘It’s no fun, I can tell you that.’
‘It’s not meant to be.’
‘I saw my friends and family drown in the ice near Newfoundland. I saw the mass graves filled with emaciated children. Who would choose to live like that for… how long?’
‘A lifetime or two. And I would do a lifetime or two more for what I have.’
He shakes his head like he pities me. ‘And what is that, besides their pain?’
Another, younger woman - Mary perhaps? - sways onto the stage in a white blouse, loose tie and a tartan skirt. Her hair is cotton candy pink, her smile sincere. Holding on to the pole, she begins to move in a genuine effort of seduction.
The man in the corner leans forward. I can smell his lust, a red scent like cherry liqueur.
‘Freedom,’ I say. ‘From craving. From regret after.’
My mellow-voiced friend scoffs. ‘Freedom? You call having to say no to everything freedom? We have the power to take what we want. Is that not the real freedom?’
Mary catches my eye. She smiles, an invitation that only extends to the edge of her stage. She beckons me with slender fingers, fingers that trace the soft curve of her neck.
‘Take what you deserve.’ His voice is in my ear, hot breath invading.
The man in the corner looks at me, then back at the young woman dancing. His jealousy mixes with the lust, a bitter tang that scars the flavour. And underneath it all, the mouldy bite of his trauma: I know now that he was married once. His wife left him for a better man. They have all left him, and all he needs is for someone to stay.
‘We can use this to help.’ I step away from my nameless friend, away from Mary and her smile and that sweet scent of hope. ‘We’re the only ones who can.’
He follows me to the bar.
The bartender - a blonde with the lip fillings, Botox cheeks and breasts of a former dancer - awakes from her mental displacement. ‘What can I get for you, love?’
‘Don’t bother, Trace,’ he says. ‘He’s not drinking anymore.’
‘If it’s the taste you don’t like, I’ve got some nice cocktails on the menu. You look like someone who enjoys something sweet.’
On stage, Mary slings her leg around the pole and twirls. Round and round and round and
My nameless friend laughs. ‘Oh, he doesn’t mind a foul taste. But he’s a better man now. Aren’t you, Auggie?’
From here, the exit seems a thousand miles away.
The bartender moves on to another customer, a young man who can’t stop bouncing on his heels.
‘Just a water,’ he says, pinching his nose and frantically wiping off something that isn’t there anymore. He sniffs. ‘Make it two.’
My old acquaintance leans over. ‘Do you think he deserves his euphoria more than you? He stole it out of a little bag, so why can’t you take it from him?’
‘Because it’s fake. It’s artificial. Euphoria-flavoured candy.’
He nods at the stage again where Mary is upside-down on the pole, still smiling. ‘Hers isn’t. I know you can smell it.’
I can. If anything, it’s gotten stronger, a pure golden yellow with streaks of turquoise, like a sun reflected in an immaculate ocean. She actually enjoys moving to the music, the lustful looks she gets.
‘When was the last time you had something as sweet as that?’ my nameless acquaintance asks.
I thrust my hands into my trench coat, grip the inside of the pockets. ‘I don’t need it.’
‘But you do. For the same reason our very hungry cocainepillar over there needs what he took. You can smell that too, right? The fourteen-hour days, six days a week. A decent paycheck, yes, but not enough to buy away the stress, the fatigue, the burnout. The wishing he could quit it all, one way or another. Life takes so much, Auggie, and it doesn’t like to give back. So we have to take it. Take any little morsel of happiness we can find in this deep, dark world. Not because we deserve it, no. Because we need a balance, something to keep us afloat, our heads above this river of shit that drags us along, on and on until we’re too exhausted to kick. We don’t need it to get high, to feel euphoria. We need it to make the pain more bearable.’
Crawling back up to zero.
On stage, Mary takes off her skirt, slow, savouring the moment. She relishes in the stares from the man who has now come out of the corner to sit at a table closer to her. She drinks in the adoration from the young man at the bar. The sweetness of her pride is intoxicating. It makes me forget. So much to forget. So many things that might never go away. But I could mask them, if only for a while.
I close my eyes and breathe her in. ‘When does she finish?’
P. T. Corwin uses his training as an actor to read to himself in funny voices. He is proud to say that in secondary school, he read Stephen King so religiously that his teacher had a quiet word with his mother. His stories have most recently been published in Black Ink Fiction, Schlock Webzine and Hedge Apple and The Dark Sire. He celebrates his literary victories on his website at www.ptcorwin.co.uk.
