A Dance in Three Steps (edited version of "Where Did They Go?")

Chris Whitley recorded fifteen albums before he died:

1. Living with the Law
2. Din of Ecstasy
3. Terra Incognita
4. Dirt Floor
5. Live at Martyrs
6. Perfect Day
7. Rocket House
8. Long Way Around: Anthology
9. Pigs Will Fly soundtrack
10. Hotel Vast Horizon
11. Weed
12. War Crime Blues
13. Soft Dangerous Shores
14. Reiter In
15. Dislocation Blues

The mom and the dad dance to Chris Whitley’s hit “Big Sky Country.” The door of the room is closed. Please unlock this door, a boy asks from the hallway. White paint on the door starts to chip. The old red coat of paint begins to show through. The dad grabs the mom’s wrist. The dad leads. They continue to dance. The boy doesn’t know what dance they’re dancing. He speculates:

1. Tango
2. Foxtrot
3. Waltz


He doesn’t know any more dances. The mom yells at the dad. The dad’s voice is louder. He won’t let go. Police station gets a call. Can they hear “Big Sky Country” playing at fifty-nine decibels? Chris Whitley is dead now. The boy could stab the dad’s brain and he’d be dead, too.

* * *

I could break your back with my twelve-year-old hand. Police station gets a call. I cry and the tear water spoils Mom’s nice blanket. Mucus too. Please unlock this door. This isn’t funny anymore. Covered in sirens, I hear only red and blue.

Stare at me in a white tee and pajama bottoms. Me? I could blind you with my nail-bitten fingers. Men in navy uniforms walk in the screen door. They have hairy arms. Mom’s going to be so mad that they’re tracking mud through her kitchen. One hands me a pen. Tells me to write. I impress them with my perfect Gs. Letter Js like licorice. Greatest story ever written.

Watch as I finish the police report. Do you think Chris Whitley still sings after you leave us? He doesn’t.

* * *

“Shall we dance?” the dad asks the mom. She nods her head, meaning they shall. She follows her husband into the room. Royal purple carpet and lilac walls. The ballroom.

“Let me show you how to dance,” the dad says, all smiles.
The mom says, “Give me your hand. So big.”
“Does our son say ‘Please unlock this door?’” he says.
“Please. No more Chris Whitley,” says the mom. “Let’s dance to the rhythm of the silence instead.”
“But the jukebox is ready.”
The dad puts on a pair of boxing gloves. The mom grabs brass knuckles from her first dresser drawer. They exchange punches and kicks until their faces and bodies are bloody.

The mom teases, “I dare you to call the police.”
“9-1-1,” the dad says. “Coming right up.”

The police arrive and the dad leaves the home. His son and wife wave good-bye.

“What did you write, sweetie?” the mom asks her son.
The son says, “A story. Want to hear?”

He reads the story: ‘A long brown tube comes out of the ground in my backyard, surrounded by a square wooden pit. A cap loosely placed on top of the tube closes off the opening. A baby bluebird leaves its nest for the first time. Doesn’t know how to fly so well. Hits the tube, knocks the cap off, and falls inside. My mom and I are out for dinner. Some not-so-fancy restaurant. We return home to a bathtub full of our feces and urine. I point out Mom’s turkey sandwich. Dad’s chocolate-covered pretzels. I had never truly seen the color brown before. Oh, my cheesy hot dog.’

“Precious. Simply precious,” the mom says. “But darling, that happened years ago.”