Guardians and Angels | Chapter Two "Dancers"

“I thought you said it was the end?”

“Is there ever really an end, Christopher?” he said, shifting through albums on his bed, searching for something. He always knew how to make me pause with his answers… which were usually questions.

No, not pause.

He knew how to make me “stop”

With words, with looks, with motions. With his image, his reflection and his shadow. His voice and his thoughts. He was my red light that somehow made everything go right. He knew how to stop me in my tracks.

Not tonight, though. Tonight he was making me go. Go to our first dance of the year and he was more excited than I had ever seen him. We were in his room, sunset spilling upon us, boombox perched on his dresser like a gargoyle peering down, leering at us.

“C’mon, Christopher, this is my favorite song right now,” he blurted out. “I’m practicing my moves”

His moves?….

Viper-like his arm slashed out hitting the play button, that smirk on his face, the golden California rays flowing behind him from a western sunset, a bronzed statue waiting for some kind of fury.

The gargoyle boombox exploded like a neutron bomb, a sonic whirlwind of polished synths, booming bass, and a slick sliding hi-hat. His room became a basement club somewhere in a big city, gritty and sleek at the same time, a cave of echoes.

Pssssssst! Aaaaahhhh! Chhhhhhh!

PUSH IT!.. PUSH IT!

Pssssssst! Aaaaahhhh! Chhhhhhh!

PUSH IT!... PUSH IT!

PUSH IT!… REAL GOOD!!!

His head stayed pinned in the air, his body began pumping in all directions at once. If there was a rhythm it was hidden deep beneath my ability to see. His arms flashed one way, his legs whipped another, his hips pumping, his abs crunching. That smirk on his face opening to a smile, a lighthouse in the sunset.

He was dancing… in a way.

He was wearing sweatpants with white socks and my eyes caught shifting and bulging patterns bouncing upon his motions. He pulled his white t-shirt over his head, hips galloping as he found the beat of the bass finally, his abs elongating and then clenching, his back arching, his t-shirt off.

How is he shaped like that? How does he…. Ripple?

“Yo, yo, yo baby pop!” (“yeah you!”)

Salt N Pepa shouted at us, antagonizing us to join in NOW! His favorite song “Push It” now playing as loud as the boombox would scream. The walls vibrating around us.

The voices from the stereo were female; aggressive, authoritarian; they knew what they wanted and they wanted it now. He was matching their tone with his fervor, a soldier under their orders, pumping in lockstep to their bellowing beats. His shirt was now swirling overhead… a breeze filled with his scent (vanilla?) was tickling my face. Abs crunching… Hips pumping…

He rode the beat like he was bouncing on his jet ski, the baseline was his wake. He looked at me with the biggest of smiles, his hair wild in the light as if he had been electrocuted by vibrations.

“We’re going to dance tonight, Christopher!” he said, too ecstatic for my taste. I had never danced before and was not excited. I was more nervous than anything.

“Come here and gimme a kiss!!!” the drill sergeants demanded forcefully as the cutting and scratching layers of the song chittered around us.

Chhh, chhh, chhh,

Chhhh, chhh, chhh

Suddenly, I couldn’t see anything, his t-shirt flung over my face, blinding me and muffling the sound of the room. In that moment he was upon me. Behind me, but also upon me, wrapped around me like the heavy robes they drape over a boxer’s shoulders in a sweaty corner. His body cloaked my body. The magnetic pull between us snapping us into place, an electric shock smacking out loudly as his fingers touched my fingers... Zzzztttch!

“Pssssssst! Aaaaahhhh! Chhhhhhh!

PUSH IT!...

PUSH IT!!!

The voices barked relentlessly. Taskmasters shoving out their tasks with no regrets. The sounds of bass & treble whirling around us, a dog pound of snarls, sounds with teeth, gnawing and scratching, yearning for us to relent.

Oh how I wanted to relent.

~~~~~~~

“It’s just like wrestling” he whispered in my ear.

The softness of his voice, the smoothness of it, still makes me ache to this day.

Instead of following the orders of our audio masters, with their treble-wielding whips lashing, bellowing stark orders from the gargoyle radio, he softened his thrusts into a hip swirl & began rocking, guiding me with his motion, his arms now wrapped around me. He was hugging me like I was a pegasus, not a fake one on a carousel, but a real stallion, flying through the night, wings outstretched. I felt him constrict around me, pushing and pulling while his whisper sat inside my ear like a dewdrop. It was all so fast and all so slow. Awkward and melodic at once. Just like us.

“Dance, Christopher” he whispered as he felt me tense up. The softness of the request. The urge of the appeal. A longing we shouldn’t know yet.

Was that his…

I pulled away. I don’t know why. I was still shy at some point with him, and the rhythm of his body matching the sound in my ears was causing me to grow warm, my cheeks turning a bashful shade of rose.

“It’s NOT like wrestling at all” I responded, facing away from him, adjusting myself so he couldn’t see my arousal.

“Yes it is!" he smirked.

"Two people. One holding the other. One trying to win, the other... resisting”

why did he say it like that?

“What? Nobody is trying to win in dancing” I almost sneered.

He paused this time. The song suddenly over. The room quiet as if he somehow choreographed this scene for me.

Silence.

Specks of dust swirling like careening galaxies in the sunset beams which fell between us, solar lasers descending from space.

“Somebody is always trying to win, Christopher”

Pause.

“Well, wrestling is like fighting and dancing is like… it’s just, not like fighting”

“You don’t have to fight to win”

Again, he made me pause.

If only I could live the rest of my moments within the pauses between us, that would be my one wish. The sunbeams with the galaxies within them cage us together while we endlessly play his records and talk about “what they mean.”

“What?” I said.

“You don’t have to fight to win” he stared at me, unblinking.

Eye contact.

Tractor beams into my thoughts, talons around my heart.

“I have no idea what you are talking about” I said, not lying.

"Okay, watch. Pick out your favorite song, we will do one last dance, and then we will go… and you will win, got it”

Hmmm, he was up to something.

He knew my favorite song. He had a habit of coming up behind me and putting his ear close to mine, lifting the earpiece of my headphone just enough to catch what I was listening to, nodding, and then going back to his business. Music check completed. So nosey.

I walked over to his bed, grabbed the album, an attractive black man standing on the hood of a sleek black car, a bucket style hat, a hazy red and green fog all around him. I hit play on the gargoyle radio, knowing what was coming, closing my eyes.

Haunting synth chords echoed through the room, a slow steady thumping bass enveloping us underneath an aching echo.

Piiiiiiing. Ping, Ping

Ping. Ping.

Ping, Piiiiiiiiiiiiing

Behind me he approached. My magnet, pulling toward me like the moon tugging the tides. The mood of the room suddenly soft, melancholic. Beautiful chords standing guard all around us.

He turned me around, hands on my shoulders, my face looking downward. A small trail of soft hairs leading from his navel down to his waistband. The chords pinging, the bass drum thumping. As he lifted my chin with his finger I closed my eyes, looking upward, I let the sound caress me, preparing to look at him, but not quite yet. A mellow, smooth, reflective male voice of LL Cool J began to rap poetry around us, the texture of caramel over my senses.

"When I’m alone in my room sometimes I stare at the wall

and in the back of my mind I hear my conscience call

telling me I need a girl that’s sweet as a dove

for the first time in my life, I see I need love”

Piiiiiiing. Ping, Ping

Ping. Ping.

Ping, Piiiiiiiiiiiiing

With my eyes closed, fluttering under my lids, I smiled softly. The lyrics engulfing me audibly, matching the yearning of my young heart.

~~~~~~~

Vanilla, and watermelon, that’s his scent… vanilla soap & watermelon bubblegum (and something else… something all his own)

With my eyes still closed, his essence floated before me, his energy sparking against mine, an electric field buzzing and cackling against the razor-wire defenses I wrapped around myself so no one could notice me… but he noticed me. He noticed my armor wasn’t dull chainmail. No, my armor was iridescent fish scales protecting a fire opal heart glistening within me, silver and pink and blue swirls.

My favorite song “I Need Love” was the soundtrack for this scene. We were the main characters, his bedroom the stage, a California sunbeam our spotlight, and the poetic words of LL Cool J our script. We didn’t need to speak because we didn’t have the words even if we would admit what we were thinking, but we both knew that he was speaking for us. The beat was beating for us. Our heartbeats were synchronized with the song and with my eyes still closed he placed his closed fist on my chest and slowly knocked.

BOOM….KICK

BOOM BOOM, KICK

His fist matched the steady throbbing bassline perfectly, landing upon my chest with soft thuds…. Knock, knock, can I please come in?

BOOM….KICK

BOOM BOOM, KICK

I couldn’t tell if it was my heart beating, his fist pounding, or the gargoyle boombox throbbing. I lowered my chin and opened my eyes, his hand now on my hip pulling me a bit closer, our gazes touching their invisible fingertips and wishing they were our lips.

His eyes were green to me, the kind of green some people call hazel. I saw crisp pale autumn leaves and sandy beaches with moss covered pebbles when I got lost in his eyes. They were nebulas outstretching toward me, dragonfly wings covered in speckles. Through the explosions that ruptured inside them I could see landslides cascading inward, Sahara sand sliding into his soul. Sandy green eyes.

“Why is this your favorite song?” he said with a longing in his voice. A curiosity that sounded sweet coming from him.

“I like the lyrics” I said, mumbling a bit, shy now that his eyes had captured mine in a headlock.

Pause.

He smirked a little and pulled me closer, our hips now touching, one hand on my shoulder, the other matching the beat of the song, a fist steadily thumping on my chest above my heartbeat.

“Who do you think of when you listen to it?”

Pause.

We swayed back and forth within the bassline. Circling slowly in the center of his room, our magnetism wrapping us together and causing us to pull in the light from around us only to shoot it out like pulsars. We were our own mirrorball, the two of us spinning in the middle-ground of the universe, the sunlight reflecting off us and shooting laser beams in all directions. I breathed in deeply, a lump now in my throat, tears coming to my eyes; I was cornered by his curiosity, trapped by his charm, unable to lie even if I wanted to. Tearful because I didn't want to lie to him ever for the rest of my life

“You” I said.

A single tear falling down my cheek, I wiped it away as it tickled its trail downward. I felt so safe and yet so vulnerable in that moment. I was admitting a thousand secret stares upon him. Unlocking my locked cage for the first time and hearing its hinges squeak. I was beginning to overflow, my longing spilling out for him to inspect.

His fist pounding slowly upon my chest, our feet turning us like a carousel, the song slowly came to an end. The bass which matched my heartbeat throbbed to a close, the reverberating piano chords fell into a slumber.

“Close your eyes” he said.

I closed my eyes. An astronaut in space, silence settling around me while his electrical field cackled and pulsed over my soul. His lips neared mine, sensed but not quite felt. Dragonfly wings covered in speckles is how they would feel. I anticipated his lips would tickle the edges of mine with the ever slightest touch, almost undetectable, sliding across mine, skimming the surface. Not a kiss technically, unless our radiant auras sliding upon one another counted. An almost kiss.

A maybe kiss.

From behind us a voice shattered the stillness, his father’s voice, low and deep, a menacing growl.

“What in the hell are you two doing?”

~~~~~~~

His father was standing in his bedroom doorway longer than we realized. He took in everything we were doing with his cold calculating coyote-like eyes; gathering all the details. He knew exactly what he saw. He saw the thunderbolts sparking between us, he smelled our magnetic fields entwining, he heard our heartbeats beating... as one.

And he was not happy about it.

He stood in his son's bedroom doorway for ten seconds, perhaps. Ten long, unguarded seconds that were so revealing they may as well have been a thousand lifetimes playing out in slow motion. It was enough time for him to see how close our lips were, how close our hips were, how his fist beat upon my chest to the beat of my favorite song, and how I closed my eyes in anticipation of his next move.

His father was one of those men who could make up their mind with a single glance. In the time it takes you to recognize the color "red" when you see it, he could determine what he thought about another man. Later on in my life I would wonder how many shades of red he saw in the ten seconds he stood there watching us dance as the music faded away. Ten seconds is a long time to watch your son dance with another boy.

"I said"

Long Pause.

He has eyes like a coyote, I thought to myself.

"What"

"Are"

"You"

"Two"

"Boys"

"Doing?"

The last word came out with a sneer attached to it, falling from his mouth and clanging like cutlery upon steel, sharp and slicing. His ecru-colored teeth were showing through thin lips, the color of bruises as he spit out his question toward us. His query fell forth like afterbirth, bloody and twisted, revealing a slickness that pulsed inside him. For a moment I swore I saw jagged triangles of teeth lined up in rows like a piranha peering out from the slit between his too thin lips, enamel stalactites waiting to pierce us if given the chance.

His father was a watcher.

The type of person that watches and notices everything, yet you'll never see him look at you. He could somehow memorize every part of you in a split second and then turn away before you could catch him. He would act like he's never met you, never seen you, but inside his mind he has logs and files and boxes labeled with everything you do. I didn't know it at the time, but he had been watching me from the moment he saw his son lay his hazel and green eyes upon me one warm Saturday afternoon at a wrestling tournament in September.

He saw him stare at me intently, glancing over at me two, sometimes three times in a row. But no one else. He saw him stand up and move to the edge of the mat and cheer as loudly as he could for me as I wrestled my match. But no one else. He saw the way he gave me a high five for the first time, our hands smacking, eyes locking, smiles squaring off, strangers recognizing one another. He saw how we both looked over our shoulders as we walked away from one another... He didn't know it, but when our hands met there was an electric shock. We both felt it. Blue and yellow thunderbolts crackling between our palms in the quantum realm.

He didn't know it, but he sensed it.

Somewhere within his father's coyote mind he heard the faint zzzzzzcccrkkkkk! sound of the spark between us and his coyote senses kicked into overdrive... he squinted his eyes and he really watched me intently from that first day forward... and he saw something.

He called it "The Twinkle"

He saw it in my eyes.

That Twinkle

He caught us doing double takes. We both turned around after our high five, each of us taking a second glance among a crowded auditorium in the wine country of California. He saw something between us in that moment, something only watchers see, and he would never tolerate in a million billion years if it were true.

"ANSWER ME!" the Coyote Man roared at us.

His face now a snarling snout baring large incisors that turned into fangs. Any moment I expected a pink tongue to roll out of his mouth so he could start panting in excitement. Smelling his prey. Slobbering with hunger.

I backed away from him instinctively, my heart pumping with adrenaline and rushing blood into my face and cheeks. Blood that gave me away. A deep blushed red tone had spread across my face.

What shade of red is that, Christopher?

Shame

Shame is not a shade...

Oh yeah it is

If the crimson shade of my face didn't point out my overwhelming guilt, my wide unblinking eyes didn't help either. He had caught us red-handed. Flush cheeked. Rose-red lip next to rose-red lip. Flirting

Not grappling like young wrestlers... but DANCING?

And almost KISSING?

A squealing sound began to ring in my ears... a slow high-pitched ring, a tsunami warning from my mind. We were trapped. Defenseless.

I felt the back of my friend's arm, above the elbow, come across my chest and land, placing him in between me and the rabid Coyote Man. It found my sternum, and pushed back hard when I wasn't expecting it. My eyes, still taking in the massive pale yellow and tan man standing in front of me, his fist now clenching as his rhetorical question lay hanging in the thick air like a steaming carcass.

"We weren't doing anything!" I heard my friend exclaim as I fell backward and tripped over my feet. His bed was behind me so I fell back and half sat, half tumbled, rocking back and then forth, then pulled myself upward.

As I sat up I heard his father's fist connect with his face more than actually seeing it. It was a dull thud with a clink of teeth clattering together as the knuckles collided with his cheekbone.

It sounded like a loose fist shaking two dice together before you blow on them for good luck. From his mouth a sound I can barely describe arose, a sound I never want to hear fill a room again, a small yelp almost.

It came out of him as a half-cry, half wail, a little boy noise springing forth from a young man’s throat, a high-pitched exclamation full of pain.

"Don't talk back to me!" his father spat as my friend crumbled to his knees, his hands covering his face as he knelt to the carpet.

"Ooww, owww, owwww. Owww!" siren wails from a human throat

He rocked back and forth on his knees a few times and pulled his palms away to reveal the crimson splatter of his blood glistening as he clenched his fingers back into fists. I heard a growling, a deep guttural throat noise emerge, a sound I never expected from him. He sounded like a wolverine with a chainsaw, a tornado and a volcano emerging at once. A split second later he sprang up toward his father and flung himself, shoulder first, straight into his hips, pushing with his arms, and shoving him out of the bedroom doorway.

Nothing was getting to me.

He was my guardian.

"Get the fuck out of my room!" he screamed.

Blood the color of ruby red wine spilling from his nose. Shades of garnet, deepening into burgundy as the blood coagulated upon his bronzed skin. Flowing in tendrils down the corner of his lips and dripping from his chin onto the carpet below.

Drip

Drip

Drip

"I just came to tell you I'm giving you your damn dog back!" his father responded, gaining his balance, now standing tall again in the hallway.

"I didn't know I was going to stumble onto a fucking sausage party," he half snickered and half giggled to himself. His eyes glancing toward me as I sat on the edge of the bed staring back toward him, beet red. Petrified.

"Shut the fuck up!" my friend screamed.

The door slammed in his father's face. A quick twist of his blood-covered wrist and a firm click and the lock was secured. The threat was now on the other side again but I knew it wouldn't hold him back if he really wanted to come in. All it would take would be one solid kick. We both instinctively moved toward the dresser to move it against the door. Little piggies in a house made of wood.

"She's outta control," he said through the door. A low mumble now, a complete change in tone that terrified me more than anything. When the bedroom door slammed shut a new personality emerged from the other side somehow, as if the noise triggered a more sinister level of demon. A deep guttural voice rumbled from the other side.

"She's just like you," he growled.

"Afraid of everything."

"Mean"

"Spoiled Rotten"

"Disrespectful"

"Ungrateful" he continued, his voice more and more sinister with each word. Poisoning our ears with the taste of his distaste.

"Doomed" he spat out

"You know what happens if she bites me one more time, don't you, Malachi?"

Malachi? I thought his name was Kai?

Malachi... Kai

Kai

I saw Kai clench his fists and place his forehead on the door. He banged it against the wood a couple of times softly and gritted his teeth. Eyes closed tightly shut, face crunched with tears squeezing out the corners. Through his perfectly white straight teeth I heard him say in the most clear and sweet voice I could imagine,

"If you harm her... I'll kill you"

The laugh that emerged as a response from the other side of the door as his "father" descended the stairs didn't come from a man born of this earth.

It didn't come from a person at all.

It came from something grotesque and salivating, a creature who watched from the distance for a long time while we were too preoccupied to notice.

It came from our murderer.

We both somehow knew it. From inside our little snow globe world that had been shaken and upended that night as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, we found out how high the stakes were. As that demon-coyote laugh trailed through his house and grew further away we heard the front door slam and Kai looked over at me, blood cracked and dried upon his handsome face, hazel eyes on fire with plots of revenge that he couldn't wait to tell me as we grabbed our clothes to plan our escape.

"Can I sleep at your place tonight?" he asked for the first time.