Square Dance Lessons
by Adam Swift
illustration by Dave Coscia
The line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles snaked through the corridor, around a cardboard cutout of Gary Busey promoting motorcycle safety, and out onto the street. After a three hour wait, Clive Montgomery finally reached the license renewal window.
“May I help you sir?” the middle-aged woman behind the window asked with all the enthusiasm of a middle-aged woman who works at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
“Yes,” Clive replied, “my dog Gene needs his license renewed.”
“Excuse me?”
“My dog, Gene, he needs a new license. I think he lost his old one when I took him bungee jumping.”
“I’m sorry, sir, this is the Registry of Motor Vehicles. We renew driver’s licenses. For humans.”
“Yes, I named him after Gene Rayburn, the host of the Match Game.”
“Next, please, whoever’s next!” the woman shouted while craning her neck to look past Clive.
“I’d have brought Gene with me, except he doesn’t care for long lines anymore, at least not since I took him on Space Mountain with me. Me, I love lines. Like you can just be standing in one and sooner or later you start moving and sometimes you just never know where you’re going to end up.”
“Please, anyone, I can help you now, please!” A choked desperation entered the woman’s voice.
“Did you know that Gene Rayburn was almost chosen for the lead role in On the Waterfront until they gave it to Marlon Brando? At least Gene Rayburn doesn’t need a forklift to move him around. I heard that he does have a weakness for Nestle’s Ice Cream Treats though. Do you like Nestle’s Crunch Ice Cream Treats?”
While Clive continued to expand upon the issue of fat content in Nestle’s Crunch Ice Cream Treats, two armed Registry policemen had worked their way to the front of the line and placed themselves on either side of him.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the building now, sir,” the younger of the two uniformed officers told Clive.
“Oh no, they haven’t given me a new license for my dog, Gene, yet.”
“Look, pal, if you don’t stop your yappin’ and get your butt out of the building, me and my partner are going to throw you out,” the older, stubble-faced security officer barked.
“Whoa, ding-dong, three o’clock, I’m going to be late for my square dance seminar at the city college. Thank you all for your help and kindness, but I’ll have to come back some other day. My, my, I hope Gene doesn’t get too angered with me.”
Clive turned, shook the two security officers’ hands, and headed out of the building. The younger of the two guards fingered his revolver as Clive shuffled through the door.
“What a goddamn fruitcake,” he muttered to his partner.
Resplendent in a double-breasted checkerboard sports jacket, high-water khaki trousers, and a pair of black wing tips, Clive Montgomery reflected on what a lovely race of animals human beings are. People were always so interested in what he had to say and were always so willing to help him. Why, those two nice policemen in the license line were so kind, offering to escort him to his square dance seminar. Every day of his life, people listened to him with a sense of wonder, and were always offering to bring him somewhere else.
Hunger pangs welled in Clive’s rounded stomach. As he passed the Main Street Bakery, a beautifully arranged display of cinnamon buns caught his attention. It’s always good to load up on some sticky sweet calories before square dancing, Clive thought as he entered the bakery.
“May I help you?” asked the woman behind the pastry counter. Clive couldn’t believe that this woman seemed even nicer than the pleasant woman at the registry.
“May I please have one of your delicious cinnamon buns?”
“Will that be sticky, super-sticky or super-jumbo sticky?”
“Better just make that regular sticky, or I’ll have to do a double dose of Sweating to the Oldies tonight.”
As Clive took the sticky bun and headed out the door, a slightly overweight sexpot in hotpants and a pink haltertop stepped into his path.
“So, do you like everything in life hot and sticky?” she cooed seductively.
“Well, I do like hot tea and honey. And sometimes when I’m feeling a little wild, I like to eat frosting right out of the container.”
“Well there, big boy, how would you like a little taste of this hot tea and honey?”
“Normally, I would love to join a new friend for a little refreshment, but I’m afraid that I’m already running late for my square dancing seminar over at the city college.”
“Ooh, a college man. Brains and a hot bod. Come with me and I’ll show you dance moves you’ve never dreamed of.”
“Hmmm…, the regular caller has been getting a little bland lately, and I’ve pretty much mastered the dosie-does. Maybe some independent study would do me good. My name’s Clive Montgomery. I’m a personalized stationery salesman by trade.”
“Pleased to meet you, Clive. My name’s Rita, Rita Blazer. I could use a little somethin’ personalized myself.”
Rita’s apartment was three blocks away from the bakery, a dilapidated red brick building with a courtyard full of overgrown weeds, outsized tomcats, and underfed children. Clive positively glowed at the thought of making new friends and learning new square dance steps all in the same day. Rita could have been glowing herself, but it was too hard to tell through the thick layer of rouge she had applied to her face at some point earlier in the decade.
The decor of Rita’s apartment itself fit perfectly with the atmosphere provided by the courtyard. Overflowing ashtrays fought for space on ancient cardtables with half emptied bottles of beer and opened packages of Saltine crackers. Rita knocked one of the ashtrays to the floor as she put down her purse.
“Would you like a drink?” Rita asked as she took another full ashtray, emptied the contents into the sink, and lit a cigarette.
“No thanks,” Clive answered as he examined the remnants of a Saltine being carried off the table by a very well-fed, if not exactly sluggish, rat. “I don’t drink. It tends to make me a little loopy.”
“How about a beer then?”
“Okay.”
Rita found an open bottle of beer on the sink which was still close enough to being full, wiped off the mouth with the hem of her skirt, and handed it to Clive.
“You really have a lovely place here, Miss Blazer. I took a correspondence course in interior decorating before I got into the personalized stationery business, and your apartment has a wonderful feel of the early Victorian period.”
“Well, I really do pride myself on my woman’s touch. You just wait here for a minute and I’ll come back and show you what else I pride myself on.”
Rita shimmied her enlighteningly unattractive body into the apartment’s other room, leaving Clive alone to once again marvel at the good fortune of his life. People are so nice, he thought yet again. Before he had a chance to stop marveling at his good fortune, the sound of a smashing fist on the apartment door brought a wide smile to his face.
“Oh, Miss Blazer, I do think that you have a visitor knocking at your door. It must be so nice having friends coming over to see you at all hours of the day. Why, when I’m home alone with my dog, Gene, hardly anyone ever stops over to visit. Gene’s a purebred Labrador mixed with a little Collie, a healthy dose of…”
“I know you’re in there with another man, Rita. Hank down in 2C saw you come up the stairs with some goddamn fruitcake dressed like the nutty professor. I wish that if you’re gonna screw me over you would have a little friggin’ class about who you screw,” the voice outside the door shouted with an equal measure of rage and exasperation.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid that’s not it at all,” Clive replied to the owner of the smashing fist outside the door. “I met Miss Blazer at the bakery and we both seemed to have a penchant for hot sticky buns.”
“Bud, you better get the hell out of here,” Rita screamed from the other side of the apartment. “I told you that I can run my own goddamn life and I don’t need you to boss me around anymore!”
“Well you tell that friggin’ fruitcake in there with you that if he goes anywhere near your hot, sticky buns, I’m going to throttle him to Latersville,” Bud screamed back, the rage in his voice starting to outdistance the exasperation.
“Why don’t you just come in here and try to throttle him? Clive is twice the man you’ll ever be!”
Clive was about to open the door and let his wonderful new friend Bud into the apartment when Bud took care of letting himself in. The door swung open and hit Clive square in the face. Bud jumped over Clive’s prostrate body, ran towards Rita, and grabbed her by the throat.
“As soon as I’m done with you, your little loverboy is going to find himself spending the rest of his nights sleeping quietly at the bottom of the bay,” Bud yelled into Rita’s face as Rita gasped for air.
As Clive came to, Rita had found a frying pan and was using it to bash out the rhythm of “Blue Suede Shoes” on Bud’s head.
“I suppose if you and Mr. Bud already had plans for the afternoon I could always come back another time for those dance lessons.”
Clive found his way out of the door as Bud continued to block the flight path of the frying pan with his cranium. At the bottom of the stairs, a squad of riot geared police officers had gathered in an attack formation and were about to rush up the stairs.
“What the hell is going on up there?” one of the police officers asked Clive. “We’ve had 911 calls from half the neighborhood complaining about some kind of a gang war going on up there.”
“Oh no, sir. Those are just my new friends Miss Blazer and Mr. Bud. They are such nice people. I think they were about to cook dinner, well, Miss Blazer sure did seem pretty handy with that frying pan anyway,” Clive answered as he chippily walked by the riot squad.
By the time Clive returned to his own immaculately kept two-room apartment, Gene was in an absolute tither.
“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to get your new license today, Gene, but I just had the most lovely day filled with all kinds of new friends.”
“Woof,” Gene answered.
“I think they really like me down at the new license building. I’m sure that they will be happy to see me again. I promise I won’t let you go another day without a shiny new license.”
“Woof,” Gene replied once again.
“Yes, it is sad that they took Match Game off the air.”
“Woof-woof,” Gene agreed.
