Twisted

A. F. Cronin

May 2006

When I got up to her she locked her eyes onto mine and spoke those same words to me. I felt embraced, welcomed and appreciated. I wrenched my eyes from her immobilizing gaze but she pulled them back when she softly added, "Wait afterwards, your friend wants to say hello." She raised her eyebrows and flashed me a knowing wink.

I nodded stupidly and muttered "OK."

At the moment, I didn’t consider how Shania knew I was the one Beatrice had invited to the show. In fact, at that moment, I didn’t even know it was Beatrice that had invited me. I didn’t know my hostess’s name and knew she didn’t know mine. All I knew was that a snotty-nosed-wolf-eyed-puffy-coated-furry-booted-falafel-loving girl in Ahmed’s Pita Heaven had invited me to a burlesque show by throwing an origami seagull at me, and I had accepted her invitation and come. I proceeded down the cramped, pitch-black hallway toward a dim, reddish light and the wonders beyond.

At the end of the hallway I entered an enormous, vaulted room lit by hundreds of candles that flickered in tall, freestanding Candelabra. There was a large black floor area where the performance would take place, and the seats rose steeply away from it. The walls were brick that had been painted black, and there were no doors except the one we used to enter the room. There were no set pieces, furniture, or even lighting instruments on or over the stage area. I climbed the stair risers and found myself a seat. There was a sort of table on the right side of each seat where we could lay our heavy coats and scarves and we all took off our outer layers and laid them down. The seats were upholstered with black velvet, wide and comfortable with abundant legroom and plenty of space on either side. It was a very comfortable situation. Soon everyone was seated, and we waited in silence for the show to begin.

The music stopped and the room fell silent. Then, without any apparent cause, all the candles on the stage went out and we were wrapped in darkness. The darkness lingered a few moments until a soft glow appeared in the center of the stage. It grew in intensity until it burst into an exploding sparkle-throwing flash that left me momentarily blinded. When my eyes readjusted to the light an elegant and dignified old woman in a long, white, satin gown stood before us: she resembled a beautiful Gandalph in drag. She smiled at us and said "Welcome." Her voice was the crackly rasp of an ancient crone. But the voices of a powerful, mature woman, an adolescent girl, and a child sounded with perfect synchronization and harmonic resonance along with her refined and deliberately articulated cadence. It was strange and hypnotic uttering.

She said, in her four toned voice, "Tonight we choose you few to see us as we really are." The eerie resonance of her voices rang like a bell in the cavernous room. She held her arms out to her sides and held her hands in soft fists. She raised her right arm above her shoulder and let it drop past her side in a soft flowing gesture. She opened her fist as she did, and sparkle-dust flowed out and floated around her. She repeated the gesture with her left hand and let more sparkles swarm into the air. Then she brought both her hands together above her head, clenched them into fists and throwing them forward she threw sparkles at us, the men in black, and, like the snow, the sparkles gently settled on us all.

Then there was a spectacular flash of light and a fantastic thunderclap, and the show began.

As our eyes adjusted from the flash, the stage was flooded with a pure blue light, and a horde of 4 or five-year-old little girls, as naked as the day they were born, stood peering at us. They were all shapes and all sorts of little girl: light skinned, dark skinned, almond eyed, thick lipped, pug nosed, plump as peaches, and thin as rails -- but they all had white-blue wolf-eyes and astonishingly long white hair.

Music started up. It was a rumbling bass line with a hard driving drumbeat behind it. The little girls screeched with joy. They scattered and flooded the seats and, although I can only speak for what happened to me in those next few moments, due to my preoccupation with my own vivacious greeter, it seemed there was a little girl for each man in the audience. An ebony colored princess scurried onto my lap and gave me one of those phenomenal squeeze-hugs little girls love to give to raggy teddy bears. Then she sat back and focused her wolf-eyes on me. She lifted a yellow rose and held it between us and she whispered, in a voice that was more akin to Kathleen Turner in her younger days than a four year old girl, "This is for you, for I am a flower too." I took the rose and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and giggled as if kissing me was the funniest thing she had ever done. Then she whispered, "Eeeeuuw, Cooties!" and jumped off of my lap and scooted back to the stage where the horde somehow formed itself into a big circle and just ran around and around laughing and shrieking. All of us men in black sat holding our yellow roses and staring at the galloping herd of little girls.

As they ran, a fog flowed up around them, and soon they were obscured within a swirling, misty, ring.

There were no lighting instruments anywhere but the blue light on the stage remained cool and even, but above the stage the blue faded into a deeper hued night-blue canopy that spread above us. Stars peeked out one by one and began to sparkle. It was like a planetarium with a funky baseline pumping through it.

Beneath the stars, one from the left, one from the right, two lanky, naked, prepubescent beauties, one light skinned, one dark, emerged from the misty ring and walked across the stage toward each other. They moved like young colts in a green meadow. Their wolf-eyes were locked onto each other’s. When they were close enough to touch, the light-skinned girl’s hand reached out and caressed the dark-skinned girl’s hip. They stretched themselves toward each other and their lips came together and they kissed. Somehow, the sound of their breath and the suctioning sound of their lips mushing together rose above the rumbling music. Whoa! The Madonna/Britney peck was nothing when compared to this!

Their hands rose up above their shoulders and came together and they intertwined their fingers and their hands pushed against each other as they finished their long, spectacular make-out. Then they disengaged. They moved their faces a few inches away from each other and their bright eyes locked together. They released their grasping fingertips and let their hands float away from the others touch, but their hands lingered in the air in a gesture of farewell as the two lovely teenagers slowly backed away from each other and disappeared into the swirling circle of mist.

The Secret, Roving, Magical, Burlesque Circus of Lower Manhattan was getting off to a great start.

Then the light, light that had no source that I could see by the way, changed from blue to red and the music ratcheted up. A full rhythm section kicked in, filling out the rumbling bass and drums, and a lead guitar screamed over the top. Then a dozen of the aforementioned leather-bustier-wearing clowns dashed onto the stage. It was riotous. The nubile clown-women rocked to the beat, dancing wildly and doing burlesque clown-stuff I can’t even describe. We, the men in black, jumped to our feet and roared our approval. And we danced. It was impossible not to join in with the clowns. The room was on fire and, as much as a bunch of lonely, isolated men in black can be, we were too.

This mayhem went on for quite some time until the music reached crescendo then crashed and the clown-women rushed pell-mell into the mist-circle, laughing uproariously as they ran.

Those clowns know how to have fun.

We stayed on our feet and cheered and clapped for a long time. The Music had settled into a sort of New-Age-I-Feel-Spiritual transitional piece–like harp music without the harps.

Shania strutted out of the mist to the center of the stage. She had changed out of her tux into a clingy, backless, white gown that glittered with rhinestones. She gave us the eye. The music went soft.

"Some of my girls are going to dance for you now," she purred. " When they’re good, they’re good. But when they’re bad, they’re better." She winked and started back toward the mist. We hooted and hollered as she strutted off stage and she blew us kisses and waved. The music kicked back in loud and fast.

A squad of wolf-eyed dancers trotted out of the mist. There were four of them in their various costumes and they pranced and skipped around the stage as if they were cheerleaders coming onto a high school basketball court at half time. As they bounced around the stage, a glittering silver pole rose out of the floor at the very center of the mist-ring. Three of the girls, including Pamela the lumber-girl, stood back and watched as Francesca, dressed in a Roman Legionnaire’s uniform, complete with polished greaves, breastplate, and sheathed gladius, started her routine.

Wow. Then wow for the next girl, Waleesha, in her business suit. Then wow for Pamela with her axe, and finally wow for Miyoong and her pirate get-up. Wow pretty much says it all.

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