Grey

The First Dance

A young girl with a crown of daisies and a slight limp walked along the pier alone. Unnoticed by all on the pier except the ring-toss barker, who noted her daisies and limp and fled his booth for the bathroom to cry for the first time in seventeen years, the girl hobbled the length of the pier, the orthopedic shoe on her right foot clumping on the boards. Thirty minutes after her walk began, the girl reached the far rail and its view of the horizon. In that time, the ring-toss barker attempted suicide three times, but succeeded only once. A banker, skipping work to drink his lunch from a paper bag, struck up a conversation with a skateboarding teenager who asked him for a sip; by the time the girl had relinquished her crown of daisies to an attending seagull, the banker and the skateboarder had both noticed how the other’s crooked nose and high forehead resembled his own. They talked about basketball as they finished the bottle, but parted ways without learning they shared a name as well. As the girl removed the metal brace from her right leg, a young couple emerged from the Ferris wheel, their hands bleach-white and clamped together, both knowing the precise time and manner of the other’s death, both already preparing to let go before it was too late. As the girl climbed onto the rail, her right foot banging uselessly against the rungs, a fisherman felt a strong tug on his line. He looked down to see his daughter, fully grown now, wriggling on his hook. As the girl balanced on the top rung of the railing, raising her face to the sun she had denied herself for five years, the fisherman, unable to release the rod yet unwilling to join his daughter in the sea, sawed through his arm with his pocketknife. As the girl fell from the railing into the water, all the radios in the arcade and the midway began playing the same song, a waltz played on instruments of human skin and recorded before there were words. As the girl’s fragile skull hit the surface of the water, everyone on the pier began to dance. The seagull took flight from the railing, the crown of daisies in its beak.

The gull flew over the waltzing crowd on the pier, over the parking lot, the cars below him bursting into flame as he passed, over the beachfront homes and surf shops and cafes. None of the people below him saw his flight, except a small boy playing with his toy trucks in his backyard. As the bird passed out of view, the boy dug a hole and buried himself in it. The next day a grown man rose from the hole, walked to the beach and dove into the ocean to search for the girl who fell from the pier. He found her, now also grown into a beautiful woman, and they lived briefly under the water together, happy for a little while.

The seagull flew over the hills and into the valley, far from his home, until he came to a small apartment building, a two-story horseshoe surrounding a leaf-choked pool. A six-year-old girl sat in a rowboat in the center of the pool. The girl looked at him as if he was expected. “You’re late,” she said.

The gull dropped the crown of daisies into the boat. The girl did not move to pick it up. “You see how it’s done,” said the gull. “You must make a new one, from the blue daisies on the far side of the river.”

“Which river?” said the girl.

“You will know,” said the gull, “when you find it. When that is done, dig a tunnel into the hill beside the river until you hit rock. Paste tomorrow’s newspaper to the rock to make a door. Use a black egg for a doorknob. The door will take you to the room where you must stay. Tear down the newspaper door to keep out unwanted intruders. Write a message to your mother and father on the newspaper scraps. Give it to the first squirrel you see. He will take it to them.”

“I have no mother and father.”

“He will take it to them. When the time is right, you will leave the room. You will know what to do.”

The girl trailed a hand in the brown water of the pool. She scooped up a handful of black leaves and took a bite. “Will you stay with me?” she asked the gull.

“I will stay until your boat reaches the shore,” he said, “but you must row.” The girl picked up an oar and began to paddle, a stroke to the left of the boat, then one to the right. The leaves protested this agitation, their first in months. The boat cut a slow path through the leaves, which closed again behind it.

The gull jumped out when the bow of the boat clanged against the rusting ladder. “I’ll wait for you at the water,” he said.

“There is water here,” said the girl.

The gull did not respond. He flapped his wings twice, hopped thrice, and took off. He flew back over the hills, back toward the beach, back across the smoldering ruins in the parking lot, back to the weary dancers on the pier. It was night now. Some had given up, collapsed to the wet boards of the pier. The fisherman had sewn his arm back on and was casting again for his daughter. The drunken banker had introduced himself to the skateboarder as they whirled past each other in the waltz. The light fixture from which the ring-toss barker had been suspended finally broke, and the resulting short circuit caused all the power on the pier to go out. The lights faded and the music stopped. Those still dancing reached out in the darkness, feeling each other for the first time. They pulled each other tight and said things no one had never said before. The gull alighted on the rail to wait.