“Last Request” by Shane McAllister
Youngstown, Ohio, April 1995
"What do you mean, you don't have 'The Chicken Dance'?"
The old man's shout rang over The Offspring's bouncing beat and driving guitar.
"I'm sorry, sir," I told him. (I wasn't.) "It's on the bride and groom's 'Do Not Play' list." I showed him the blank side of a random sheet of paper—maybe the driving directions to the reception site, I don't remember.
"But 'The Chicken Dance' is a family tradition." He held up his half-empty tumbler of gin.
I shrugged and pointed at the bride, who was jamming and lurching on the dance floor with her friends. "Maybe her brother will play 'The Chicken Dance' at his wedding, and you can maintain the ritual then."
"Watch your mouth, young man." He shook a scaly pink finger at me. "You slackers will find yourselves on the street with that kind of attitude."
"Thank you, sir. It's been great chatting, but I have to get back to work now." I turned away and switched to the next track, Elastica's "Connection."
The Chicken Man stalked over to the bride's parents and proceeded to deride my performance, my profession, and possibly my entire generation with a series of wild hand gestures.
I checked the bride and groom—who had once been three years ahead of me in high school—to make sure they were having a good time. They were the ones who signed my check, after all, not their parents.
"Do you take requests?" said someone behind me.
"Depends." I turned to face the speaker. "What do you…"
My voice crawled to a halt as I absorbed the sight of the strange woman. "Beautiful" was too feeble a word or even a concept. Everything about her was jet black—her hair, eyes, clothes, fingernails, even her lipstick. In the midst of the darkness, her pale skin seemed to have its own glow, like those fish that live in caves at the bottom of the sea.
My pulse surged, and my palms started to sweat like my blood sugar had just plummeted. I did a mental check of when I'd last eaten. No, I'd been good that day. It was her, not my pancreas, putting me on the verge of passing out.
Somehow she had crept behind my table, but I wasn't about to tell her that area was off-limits. I wasn't about to tell her anything except “Yes.”
"Yes."
"You should play Billy Idol's 'White Wedding.'" She shifted her feet, making the hem of the black lace dress sway over the tops of her high-heeled combat boots. "It would be totally brill."
I stared at her face, framed by a black veil, a longer version of the ones I used to see Hispanic ladies wearing at Mass. "Are you with the bride or groom?"
"I'm with the DJ, I hope." She laughed and drew a thin brown cigarette to her lips. "I'm a crasher. I was passing by and I thought you were cute." She batted her long lashes, then rolled her eyes. "Pathetic, huh?"
I took a step closer to this sublime mixture of Siouxsie Sioux and Susan Sarandon (I know, too many 's', but I can't help that it's exactly who she looked like, and still does). "Isn't 'White Wedding' a little dark for the occasion?"
She widened her eyes, which turned out to be deep brown instead of black. "It's not dark. It's about new beginnings. Remember the lyrics: 'It's a nice day to…start again!'" She raised her fist straight up.
I got that bitter gut-twinge, the one that felt like a door slamming in my soul.
Start again. As if.
They say depression's in your head, meaning your brain. But it doesn't feel like it. Okay, maybe a little around the edges of your face, at the corners of your eyes. But mostly it settles deep in your core, below the spot where your last ribs meet. It's like a stone, but not solid. It grows and pulses whenever your thoughts stray to the future.
The only way to cope is to stay in the moment. Walk over here, flip that switch, speak this set of words this person expects. Function, function, function. Except when you can't. Until the only solution left is the final one.
You either get it or you don't. If you get it, I don't need to explain the whole sordid backstory of why my life sucked or which medications weren't working. If you don't get it, you'll judge no matter what, and my lame explanation would just give you more evidence to weigh.
Getting back to the girl…
Her shoulders eased into relief with the drag off her cigarette. "That's so much better. I've been in a car with new leather for the last two hours. No smoking upon penalty of death." She tilted her wrist to let the smoke drift away from her face. "I totally dare you."
"I don't smoke."
"I mean the Billy Idol song." Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "This crowd'll love it. They grew up in the eighties like you, right?"
I wondered why she didn't say 'grew up in the eighties like us.' She seemed about my age (twenty-seven).
"Already did the eighties portion of the reception. 'White Wedding' isn't part of my collection, anyway." I met her gaze full on. "But if you have another request, maybe I could oblige."
She frowned, and I cursed myself for misreading what I thought was flirtation.
But then she glided forward, close enough to touch. "If you had the song, would you play it?"
"No." I shoved my hands into my pockets to keep them off of her. "I've already gotten in trouble for showing independence in my set lists."
"Ooh, a martyr for the music." She shook her head, making the black silk of her veil caress her cheeks. "You hate this job, anyway. You're dying to be freed from this life."
Her words were like an icy finger on my spine. "What makes you say that?"
"This." She thumbed one of the black-and-white buttons on my tuxedo. Her touch jolted my heart like a defibrillator (and yeah, I knew what one of those felt like). "It fits you like a straitjacket." She slid her finger down the shirt's center seam. "I can get you out of it."
I bit the inside of my cheek to hold in a groan of desire. Before that moment, it had been easily three months since my last hard-on (various reasons).
I shifted my weight to ease the pressure, then kept shifting until I had taken a full step back. I grabbed the folded-up set list. "It's time to cut the cake."
"I don't fancy cake anymore." She turned away, swinging her veil in a wide black arc. "Bye!"
"Wait!" I started to follow her, but the song was fading. "What's your name?" I called.
She held up a hand as she glided out the door.
I cued the next song, Salt-N-Pepa's "Whatta Man," in honor of the groom. Then I threw down the program and left my station. The cake could wait.
When I got to the door of the reception room, I looked up and down the long hallway. The chaotic, multi-colored pattern of the carpet made me feel motion-sick. Other than a pair of elderly ladies returning from the bathroom, and a couple of teenage guests making out in the far corner, the corridor was empty.
I darted through the hotel's lobby and out the revolving door to the wet parking lot. Silent, shiny cars stretched in rows on either side, but no Mystery Girl.
I lifted my face into the night's driving rain, letting its chill wash away my body's last gasp of lust and frustration. Go back to numb, I ordered myself.
It took longer than I expected. By the time I'd lost the urge to roam the streets looking for her, my clothes were soaked, and I knew the song was nearing the end. I shoved the door open and entered the hotel. Water dripped from the ends of my hair and sleeves, soaking the hideous carpet as I shuffled across the lobby.
Uh-oh.
The song in the reception room was no longer Salt-n-Pepa's funky praises of a mighty mighty good man. A creeping bass line gave way to a quick double-shot of sawing guitar. Billy Idol was about to declare it a nice day for a white wedding.
I stepped through the double doors of the reception hall to see all eyes fixed on the disc jockey station, a raised platform next to the hardwood dance floor.
"I am Regina, Mistress of the Music. Your regular DJ had to step out for some fresh air, so I'm here to take you to the dark side."
From where I stood, I couldn't see her face, hidden behind the lace edges of the long black veil. Instead of yelling for her to get off the stage, the guests just stared, mesmerized, the way I had when she first turned her eyes on me.
"Because when it comes to marriage," she continued, "you have to take the good with the bad, you know? Some days you'll snuggle up and talk about babies and puppies or whatever it is you plan to nurture, and other days…" She angled her chin to speak to the side of the crowd near my door. "Other days you'll rip out each other's throats."
She looked at me then, stopping my breath. Her lips twitched up, but the smile only made her face seem sadder.
She pressed the mic close to her mouth. "But you can always start again."
Regina turned off the microphone and cranked up the music. She had timed it perfectly to coincide with the beginning of the lyrics, using some extended-intro remix I'd never heard.
The spell broken, a few of the edgier looking members of the wedding party started to bob their heads, then dance to the haunting, ass-kicking tune.
The bride, however, was yelling at the groom and pointing at Regina, who was sifting through my CDs and tossing them into three piles.
He intercepted me on my way to the platform.
"This is a joke, right?" Mark gave me an uneasy smile. "I knew we shouldn't have gotten married on April Fools' Day."
"Relax," I said as I brushed past him, "I'll take care of it."
"So what, it's not a joke?" He caught my arm. "What the hell, Shane? You've been like a zombie all night. You pronounced Becky's sister's name wrong, you forgot to introduce her dad for the toast, and now this?" He squeezed the end of my sleeve, wringing out the water. "And where were you just now?"
"Like she said, I needed fresh air."
"We gave you a chance." Mark stepped closer, clearly trying to look casual to the rest of the crowd. "We didn't listen to the people who said you were an unreliable jagoff."
"Who said that?"
"I heard you looked like crap at Krista Murphy's reception last week."
"I was sick."
"You've been using again."
I'd been clean for months (mostly), but no one believed me, so I'd stop trying to convince them. "It's none of your business."
"Bullshit it's not." His face was red from dancing and drinking and self-righteousing. "I don't want you to end up like Stephen."
That hurt. "Man, don't bring him up now."
"Like everyone isn't thinking about him?" He pointed to the bridal table at the other end of the room. "It shoulda been my brother making that best man's toast, not my idiot cousin Colin."
"I know, I know." I stared over his head—an easy thing to do, since he was only five-ten to my six-five. "The cake's starting to melt. I gotta get back to work."
Mark grabbed my arm again. "Shane, I know a good counselor who helped one of my students. Six months ago the kid was giving hand jobs for heroin money. Now he's brought his grades up, and he's even looking at college."
The 'C' word. Never a way to get on my good side.
I patted Mark's shoulder. "Call me after your honeymoon. We'll talk." I knew I'd be ten days dead when he and Becky got back from Barbados. It bummed me out that they wouldn't be at my funeral.
"Great." He shook my hand in that manly way that conveyed so much feeling. "Now go get that crazy bitch off the stage."
I froze, his hand still in mine. A switch inside me flipped. "What'd you call her?"
"Heh. Sorry. She's not your friend or anything, right? I know you used to be into punk and all, but she looks like something the Addams Family flushed down the toilet."
I turned to Regina, who was nodding to the music and pumping her fist, a snarl curving her full dark burgundy lips. When the female background chorus swelled, she closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and raised her palms as if in worship.
Then she spun to face me and silently screamed with Billy Idol, "Start agaaaaaaain!"
I'd never seen anyone so alive.
"Hang on," I told Mark as I stepped onto the platform. Avoiding the plugged-in equipment (I was still dripping wet), I grabbed a pair of CDs from the bottom of a pile Regina hadn't cycloned yet, then carried them back to Mark. "I always have these for emergencies."
He flipped the CD over and read the magic marker on the shiny surface. "Wedding compilation?"
"Stick it in and press play. Press stop when you want to talk." I picked up my coat. "Your refund'll be in tomorrow's mail."
"What?! You're skipping out on my wedding?"
"Tell your mom and dad goodbye. They were always really cool to me." I slipped on the long black raincoat. "But I gotta go."
I reached for Regina's hand. She ran across the platform and leaped into my arms, then slid down my body in a way that made it ache in every cell.
As we ran for the exit, I heard Mark shouting profanities over the shrieking guitar, culminating in "You'll be sorry!"
Copyright © March 2009 Jeri Smith-Ready
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