Step in Stride

The click of the canes stunned the crowd. The big steppers excited the New Sweden University crowd. Backstage presented a paradise of riches. Women, food, drink all flocked to the Greek steppers.

“You candy cane using sons a bitches,” Kero Burbank called.

The steppers continued to step despite the heckles from Burbank.

He looked on with malicious intent. He threw a half empty bottle of beer on stage and watched it smash and splash one of the steppers. They were undeterred. A security guard restrained Burbank. He ushered him out of the venue and into a makeshift brig.

“What the hell was that?” security guard Kason Fick asked.

“I hate them,” Burbank replied.

“You can’t throw bottles on stage. You know better. I’m giving you a citation. Go before a judge on Monday and get your life together.”

Burbank went home with a head full of discontent. He devised a method for disrupting the steppers. Their synchronicity and expertise he despised. He wanted to be up there with all those college girls attached to him. He wished and hoped and prayed that one day he would have the ability to contend with them. He did no training, he held nothing.

Instead, he cooked up a scheme to see them all fail. He brought up plans to bring the stage down and blame it on them.

With a few elements from the pyrotechnics professionals, he distracted the crowd by setting off a few sparks. In the meantime, he had loosened the screws on the stage apparatus.

The steppers kept their routine despite the sparks. Burbanks’ eyes lit up when the scaffolding began to collapse. The metalwork creaked and groaned under the weight. Burbank started walking away through the crowd dressed in all black down to his boots.

The screams from the crowd were like shrieks of dying cats. Burbank moved like a gato through the crowd as the framework crashed to the stage like an avalanche of metal.

Butbanks saw on his smartphone the bedlam that arose out of his vicious handiwork. He grinned. Then he set to practicing his own stepping routine. He linked up with some fellow college dropouts. They maintained their black attire and continued to dance with the wobbliness and imprecision of seals ambling on a beachfront.

“We’ve got to show them that we are supportive. Nobody died, just a few burns and cuts and bruises. If we present ourselves as the consummate professionals and them as the twerps, we might have a grasp on the entire show.”

Panting and out of breath Brolin Volpe asked, “How long is this going to take?”

“It will be an all day affair. It will be an all night affair. However long it takes,” Burbank answered.

“But do we have to practice so much? I just want a beer,” Siemen Dodd said.

“Goddamnit, you get no booze. We will continue to practice until we’re dying. We will get to the point of defeating our enemy. That’s the whole point. We must beat others. That is our purpose and drive for life. Not integrity or honesty. We just need to work. That is the most important aspect of what we call life. Our communist ways must defeat those capitalist steppers. We’ll come out on top no matter what.”

The men assembled again and tried to reassemble the team again. Their ugly movements meant for an ugly performance.

Yet, they stood on the stage. Burbank went to the mic.

“We are saddened at the disaster that occurred on this stage a few weeks back. We dedicate this dance to all who were hurt.”

Fick noticed Burbank and started moving towards the stage. Before he could even perform, Burbank was arrested. Fick had tied the incident to Burbank by his connection to the pyrotechnics.

“You’re going away,” Fick said. His fellow security personnel rounded up the other men with speed.