Short Story / The Dancing Lady
Every morning at 3 o’clock Oscar walked to the market. He had been doing so for nearly twenty years. He and his wife often went together if she weren’t busy in the house and if her sister could take care of the children. But now he went alone, she having died many years ago when the jeepney she was in drove over the Pateng Bridge.
Oscar was a spry 70 year old and very strong. His body did not agree with his age. He could hike up the mountains in Santa Clara faster than men half his age and his arms were like two iron rods. Yet, he was old in the face. Years of mourning dug deep trenches under his eyes and his cheeks seemed to collide like two continental plates. Each day a new wrinkle appeared. The whole Cagayan River could easily nestle between them. He missed Daisy very much and there wasn’t a day that went by that he did not think of her.
The market was bustling as usual. Oscar went early to get the best fish and vegetables. People were hopping about in all directions and searching for the perfect crab and jumbo shrimp. Some settled on a few pieces of squid and a kilo or two of talapia. Most of the talapia were still alive, having recently been deposited on the wet tables, flopping their last minutes of life and spraying stink water on perspective customers—but how tasty they were right off the grill or the frying pan with a little soy sauce and garlic and a Red Horse Beer.
After buying his fish, Oscar walked over to the fruit and vegetable table. A little girl ran passed him, whipping his pink bag of fish into a spiral. Children were always doing that. They never seemed to pay attention to where they were going, oblivious to the clatter and clank and the buying and selling of fish and the footsteps of others. As he watched her disappear into the banana and watermelon stands, he wished to be a child again, to have nothing to worry about, to dream and eat ice cream all day and swim in the river and chase girls and catch frogs and run naked on the beach.
“Hello, sir,” the young girl behind the fruit and vegetable table said. She couldn’t have been no older than 20. She was so beautiful and reminded him of his wife. Her hair was pulled back in a bun and her simple lips smiled at him. Oscar imagined that if this girl before him were a flower, she would be a dancing lady, bright and yellow and delicate, twisting in the wind to the music of nature—rain setting the tempo, thunder the conductor and lightning his clairvoyant baton.
“Hello,” Oscar said. “Do you have any broccoli today?”
“Yes, sir. How much would you like?”
“How much is it?”
“5 pesos a kilo.”
“I’ll take two.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And give me a kilo of ampalaya, please.”
“Yes, sir.” She placed the long, ribbed and green vegetable on the scales. After she weighed everything, she carefully put them in a green plastic bag, tying the two ends together in a loose, but secure, knot.
“Can you double bag it for me, please?”
“Yes, sir.”
She handed him his order and gave him back his change. He lightly grazed her hand as he took his change, her skin something milk would feel like if it were solid: smooth and clean and delicious. He smiled at her as he walked away. She smiled, too, her olive skin whirling into a bright shade of pink, like cotton candy at the town fiesta. He thought hard on her face and swore to remember it. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to know her name and buy her flowers and candy and take walks with her on the beach. How he wished to be young again.
Five days later he was on the beach and helping Clifford repairing his banka. There was a large hole near the stern. The day before, as Clifford was pulling in to beat the storm, a large wave slammed the boat into a wall of coral that was just barely above the surface. Somehow he and his crew were able to tug the boat to shore before it became victim to the wrathful sea and home to a school of fish and ghost crabs and any other creature that liked grounded boats to settle in.
The banka repaired, Oscar, Clifford, and Clifford’s crew settled in a nipa hut, 8 cases of Red Horse Beer packed in ice under the bamboo table. Twilight on a blackout, thick sweat on your back Friday. It was a typical weekly barcada in April. On the table were a variety of special Filipino pulutan: Pinapaitan, Kilawen, and Sinanglaw.
As the sun dipped into the sea, the last of the light swallowed up by dark clouds, a few of the crewmen broke away with three cases of beer to another hut. A lantern was flipped on and a deck of cards pulled out. Several hundred pesos were stacked on the table.
Alcohol and poker were not often friends. A Full House beats a three of a kind every time. But try telling that to the guy who has knocked back a case of beer by himself. A three of a kind wins or a gun is drawn, usually out of a kind of playful rage, mad but not really wanting to hurt anyone. But sometimes, by accident, the trigger is pulled and the gun explodes into the small group of friends. The table is turned sideways and the men kick up sand and dive behind coconut trees. Others are grabbing the gunman and pulling him to the ground and the rest are seeing about the guy whose guts are mixed with the pulutan and sticking like a pizza on the nipa hut ceiling.
Oscar worried when men drank and played cards. He never liked it. He wanted to leave every time, but felt obligated to stay. What if something happened and he was the only one who could help? What if he left and Clifford was shot? He would blame himself if Clifford died. So he never left a barcada.
Oscar watched over the poker game and looked out at the dark sea and listened to the waves. Their sound drew closer with each crash. It was as if the Japanese were landing again and he could see the sand transform into soldiers and soldiers transform into darkness. It was the alcohol speaking to him. He knew it and so he decided to stop drinking and nibble on the Pinapaitan for awhile and focus more on the game. He watched the men’s hips and knew that there was a gun hidden in one of them or maybe all of them. Despite the men having gulped down their weight in beer, the game was still friendly Yet Oscar grew nervous and lit a cigarette and watched the smoke until the rings vanished into nothing. “Where does the smoke go?” he wondered.
After about an hour of watching the game, Oscar concluded that it was ok for him to go for a short walk. There was only one case of beer left and it was getting close to 1’oclock and the party was winding down peacefully. No signs of violence. Everyone would go home friends.
The sun would be up in a few hours and Oscar always enjoyed watching it rise like some yellow-orange blister growing out of the sea. He always enjoyed watching the fishing boat lights move mysteriously across the water like a fluorescent snake, until their lights were overpowered by the trapped light bouncing off the atmosphere, turning the sky from white to orange to yellow to blue. After watching the tide move away, exposing coral and rocks, he would shoulder his basket and slip into the shallow pools and search for sea cucumbers, crabs, anything he could find for breakfast. Then it was off to the market. But today would be different. Today he would see that girl again, the dancing lady, and ask her her name.
He settled into his beach bed he built a few years ago and tried to sleep, but the poker game was growing louder. Still friendly voices with the noise of jokes and stories of former girlfriends and the sea, the day when Evett ran off with another man from Tuguegarao, when Thomas blew his left arm off while dynamite fishing, the time John saved a little girl from drowning when the boat she was in capsized while going to Palaui Island.
But Oscar would not see or hear about those things again. He never woke up from his dreams. And as the spirit of the waves took his heart away from him, all he could see was his wife running toward him and that girl, that beautiful girl at the market whose face he longed to remember, whose name he would never know.
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A calm, evocative tale.
I guess that’s what Oscar gets for perving at a girl that could be his grand daughter!
(She couldn’t have been no older than 20.) – There’s a double negative here, ‘any’ is better instead of ‘no’.
(helping Clifford repairing his banka) – ‘to repair’?
(nibble on the Pinapaitan for awhile) – should be ‘a while’ when following a preposition.
(He always enjoyed watching the fishing boat lights…) – ‘light(s)’ appears in this sentence three times.
Good distraction technique at the end with the guys and their guns.
Nice work.
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drove over the Pateng Bridge --- drove off?
Years of mourning dug deep trenches --- had dug
his cheeks seemed to collide like two continental plates --- this sounds weird, does he or doesn’t he have a nose?
Also perhaps you spend a bit too long describing his face, do it in less words otherwise it sounds as if you can’t quite describe it right to yourself
flopping their last minutes of life --- life away?
perspective customers --- prospective
her simple lips smiled at him --- you mean she has a simple face? I think I know what you’re trying to say here but my first reaction was – what would complicated lips look like?
From the point to the poker game onwards it’s like a different person to the one who started writing this story has begun writing; the second half is much much better, and some of your descriptions of the atmosphere of the game and of his memories of soldiers becoming darkness are beautifully written.
I think it ends well too, with the girl in the market place appearing at the end to have been his deceased wife coming to welcome him to join her in death.
Once you tighten up the first half of this I think you could have something well-formed and well-written on your hands.
good luck working on this
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