The Moby Dick Diaries

Loomings

November 28, 2015

After I handed in my MacDonald's uniform, I pedaled back across town to the Veterans' Memorial Auditorium which, at two stories high, is the largest building in Porterville. I had planned to run through my dance backstage. But each time I started, I got stuck and forgot my steps in the exact same place, every time. Time ticked. Desperate, my mind blanked. Panic set in. What if I blank onstage? Fear rose in my throat. I felt lightheaded. My eyes spun. 

Next thing I knew, I was laid out on the cold floor with someone calling my name ...

"Lee? Where the hell are y-- Lee! You're on in five! Snap out of it!" Consuela slapped my cheeks. It stung. Then she and my bestie Maddy dragged me off the floor and pulled my carcass onto a metal folding chair. Two concerned faces stared at me.

Maddy said, "Lee, don't worry about David. He's in Jesus's arms now."

Consuela waved her arms. "Oh fuck-all! So it's Saint David now?" 

The stage manager said "Shut up you three."

Connie seethed at Maddy. She stage whispered. "Don't make me straighten you out like a piece of wire, pendeha."

I wailed. "I don't want David in anyone's arms but mine." Like Jonah I'd been swallowed whole by a whale. Black blubber closed in on me from all sides. I closed my eyes.  Even though it was fripping cold, sweat poured off me. I felt hot, like I'd pass out again, my stomach barfy. 

How stupid of me to be performing three days after my boyfriend...my ex-boyfriend died. Four days after he broke up with me. Why oh why did David have to die? Was it true that only the good die young? What did that make me? The whole town knows about us. I blame my crazy dance obsession. If only I'd have loved him better, been a better girlfriend, he'd be alive right now.

Maddy said, "It's Lee that needs our help, Consuela."

"For once you're right." Connie turned her sights on me. "Lee, you're worse than Maddy. You're double-fucked."

"And why is that, Consuela?" Connie was starting to piss me off.

"Next year you'll get the expected seventh period work study at MacDonald's hoping it leads to a job as a manager after high school. For a couple of years, your life will be about getting laid, paid, and loaded. You'll end up pregnant, if you're not already, married to some asshole, maybe a "David", maybe somebody worse. You'll live in a little Porterville box house the rest of your life washing out some asshole's underwear. Like your mom."

I yelled. "I quit MacDonald's. And I'm not pregnant."

The stage manager came over. "Take your fight to the green room." 

When she left, Maddy whispered, "What Consuela's trying to say is you have to go out there and do your dance but then you have to get out of this harsh town before you die. Do not do this dance to save David. Do not do it to save the whales. Do it to save you."

Consuela said softly. "Yeah that's what I'm saying." Connie doesn't do soft. It got to me. I started blubbering all over again. 

The stage manager's voice came over the backstage speaker. "Places everyone. Places."